Satellite Photos Show a Dramatic Decline in Emperor Penguins in the Antarctic
"We'll probably have relatively few emperor penguins left by the turn of this century.”
Published June 10 2025, 3:26 p.m. ET
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and satellite images from Antarctica appear to show that the population of emperor penguins that call the icy area home have been dropping at a rate that is much faster than anyone thought, telling a heartbreaking story.
The photos were taken over several years, beginning in 2009 and ending in 2024, and they appear to show a 22 percent drop in emperor penguin populations over the years.
Researchers are addressing the apparent emperor penguin decline in Antarctica, sharing what could be behind it, and what it could mean for emperor penguin populations around the world.
Sadly, the news isn't good on either front, and it seems like we could be looking at a world without these popular penguins in a short period of time.
Satellite images show emperor penguin populations are declining.
Images were released from a section of the Antarctic Peninsula, near the Weddell Sea and Bellingshausen Sea on June 10, 2025, as part of a project carried out by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
In the photos, researchers were able to estimate the populations of 16 different colonies of the penguin species. According to ABC News, those populations appear to have dropped during that time due to shrinking areas of sea ice, which the penguins need to survive.
“Sea ice is very important for the penguins because they breed on sea ice and forage on sea ice,” BAS researcher Peter Fretwell told ABC News, blaming climate change for the declines.
Up until the June 2025 images were released, researchers believed that emperor penguin populations had only dropped by around 10 percent, but with the updated images, researchers are calling the situation "alarming" and "so much worse" than what they had previously believed.
The declining population of emperor penguins has surpassed the worst-case scenario estimates.
Another researcher involved with the project shared how the real-life changes happening with the emperor penguin populations had far exceeded what they imagined in a statement about the findings.
"The fact that we're moving to a position faster than the computer models project means there must be other factors we need to understand in addition to loss of breeding habitat,” the paper's co-author, Dr. Phil Trathan, wrote, hinting that trolling and other manmade issues could be to blame.
According to Dr. Trathan, the only way he believes that the population can be restored is by a united effort to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, something that world leaders have struggled to do for years.
"If we don't, we'll probably have relatively few emperor penguins left by the turn of this century.”
While the news is incredibly bleak, it's worth noting that the Antarctic only makes up 30 percent of the world's population of emperor penguins. That being said, the conditions that are decimating the number of penguins in Antarctica could easily impact populations in other parts of the world, leading to the relatively non-existent presence of penguins that Dr. Trathan believes we'll see by 2100.
And if reality continues to outpace Dr. Trathan's predictions like it has been, that date could arrive a whole lot faster than everyone expects it to, spelling an end to the emperor penguin's presence in the wild.