Mass drowning of chicks puts emperor penguins at risk of extinction
Posted by wanton_wonton_@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 52 comments
Posted by wanton_wonton_@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 52 comments
YoSoyZarkMuckerberg@reddit
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Who_watches@reddit
I’m sorry penguin bros
wanton_wonton_@reddit (OP)
The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction.
Four of the five known emperor penguin breeding sites in the Bellingshausen Sea collapsed in 2022, with the loss of thousands of chicks. Another colony in the Weddell Sea collapsed in 2016. Researchers called the catastrophes “grim” and “extraordinarily distressing”.
The Antarctic fur seal population has als9 dropped by more than half since 1999, according to IUCN. The decline is the result of rising ocean temperatures pushing krill to greater depths in search of colder water, reducing the availability of food for seals. Krill shortages at South Georgia island have slashed the survival of pups in their first year.
The southern elephant seal is also now at risk of extinction, the IUCN said, having been hit by bird flu outbreaks since 2020. The disease has affected four of the five major subpopulations, killing more than 90% of newborn pups in some colonies.
Sea_One_6500@reddit
This is so incredibly sad. I did not expect to have this cry this morning. I feel sick over the thought of innocent beings suffering from our greed and exploitation of our planet.
Alarmed-Badger-9950@reddit
What about their suffering in nature? They live brutal lives in nature. Most of them die agonising deaths in infancy through disease, starvation, injury, accident, predation, aggression, and so on. They do not live romantic, harmonious, beautiful, peaceful, happy lives. Human-inflicted suffering is obviously horrific, but there is a moral inconsistency to cry over animals suffering in one context and celebrate, justify or tolerate the same (or worse) level of suffering in another. Prey animals being ripped apart by predators deserve our empathy too. Chicks dying of disease and starvation deserve our empathy too.
Extinction is actually the end of suffering. No thylacine, no dodo, no moa, no non-avian dinosaur will ever suffer again. When the emperor penguin goes extinct, no chick will ever feel the pain and fear of drowning again. When the tiger and the polar bear go extinct, no individual of those species will ever suffer again (nor will the prey animals they kill to survive, who suffer brutally).
deinterest@reddit
Life is suffering, but without life there is also no joy and beauty.
summercookiess@reddit
Life creates the need and desire for joy and beauty, which is unnecessary
Lena-Luthor@reddit
if we just cause mass extinction, nobody will suffer after 🤓☝️ /s
Bajadasaurus@reddit
These are astonishing numbers. This is much more grim than I would've expected... I'm at a loss for words.
lourelo@reddit
The headline should be reprimanded for being clickbait.
RichieLT@reddit
90% percent is an insane number, if true they won’t recover . :(
Bajadasaurus@reddit
Yeah. That's horrific
Electronic_Charge_96@reddit
Only correct word. This was a lovely planet for a long time. 🦋🌻🌸💜🦭
wtp0p@reddit
Still can’t fathom humans fucked up an ecosystem that ran smoothly for millions of years (apart from some bumps) beyond repair in what, less than 300yrs? And that humanity as a whole is unable to think long term and course correct. It’s insane.
Mathfanforpresident@reddit
We are able to think long term.
However, the capitalists that are obsessed with maximizing profits at the expense of the only habitat on existence, don't give a shit.
They won't be here and they feel they've been given the Right to do what they wish with the planet.
This is all done on purpose.
mrpickles@reddit
We can't behave long term as a group.
The selfish gene.
Leoincaotica@reddit
Antinatalism core
Anxious_Gift_7125@reddit
Well people will generally see the fact that we are dying less in war, have lower infant mortality, and have lower levels of extreme poverty as the only signers for an unprecedented good world.
While if you’re anthropocentric this is all true, what we have done to the planet in the process of getting there is nothing short of depressing
Electronic_Charge_96@reddit
Amen and high-five. we are a deranged species (have a PhD in this species). Geologist beau helps to point out how insignificant our history is in relation to earth and that it will shift to something else. Helps. But damn did we muck it up.
Madimadi1@reddit
That’s what gets me too.
Leoincaotica@reddit
I think people forget that they learn such terms at a young age and when actually exposed to it, you’re in a rat race, forget that having to get to have the term extinct on an animal is just the extreme equivalent of saying : there has already been an extreme loss without much positivity after knowing this.
Extinction means reduction to 0.
No blame game here, I think many don’t actually have sat down (yes in this sub probably they did) and thought that this animal will go down to 0 within 50 years roughly said. And I think that’s a very “glass half full” way of saying it.
“Data Page: Number of species threatened with extinction”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, and Max Roser (2022) - “Biodiversity”. Data adapted from International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved fromlink [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).
stuffonyinz@reddit
Truly. Sitting here crying for these lost souls and the potential of this once beautiful planet. 20 yrs ago I remember shouting about these outcomes and it is still no less shocking as it happens.
Phrainkee@reddit
And orca whales.... Need them to survive...
IT'S THE CIRCLE OF LIFE AND IT RULES US ALLLLLL
we're soooo boned
SquirrelAkl@reddit
Well this was an incredibly sad post to stumble across just before sleep :’(
TheJewBakka@reddit
God dammit. This makes my stomach hurt.
darkpsychicenergy@reddit
The genocide of non human life is the worst ever committed. Human supremacy and anthropocentrism is the true eco-fascism.
Somehow I’m still surprised that anyone is shocked. What did you all expect when scientists have been saying for decades that we are causing extreme changes faster than anything can adapt to?
Leoincaotica@reddit
Ikr, they are studying their entire life to it as well, often people who have extreme interest.
The lack of content about this speaks louder because back in 2010 I remember a lot more talk about all of this. I am not shocked, I was shocked as a child growing up adults don’t have a think here and there about how screwed up it is, even with the bills on the table. Then again, I have seen people turning their life around whenever they were confronted.
That number stopped around my 20’s and im turning 30 this year.
Sad.
summercookiess@reddit
I'm willing to bet that even people who aren't human supremacists still contribute to this kind of harm.
darkpsychicenergy@reddit
Absolutely. Whether people want to believe it or not, we all are, to one degree or another. Unless, maybe you’re a member of an uncontacted tribe living in the remains of the remote Amazon. There’s really no one else left whose existence is not in some way dependent upon the mass destruction, extraction and fossil fuel run global industrial manufacturing, agriculture, trade and supply chain.
terrierhead@reddit
Goddamn it. No. Just no. Not them.
CyberSmith31337@reddit
Penguins are one of my favorite creatures to ever walk the earth; one of my earliest childhood toys from nearly 50 years ago was an Emperor Penguin with the chick between it's legs.
This is one of the most disheartening things I've read all year, and that's really saying something in 2026.
Mammoth_Line_595@reddit
Same here, penguins are my favorite animals in the world I'm fucking crying
KerouacsGirlfriend@reddit
Same. Penguins are my totem animal. Just sitting here crying at the mental image of the babies. What have we done (rhetorical of course. We know what we did)
Alarmed-Badger-9950@reddit
These babies feel the same pain. We can prevent their killing by making different purchases.
KerouacsGirlfriend@reddit
Oh god! I already don’t eat meat!
Mental_Map5122@reddit
All the innocence and joy in our lives is relentlessly destroyed day after day. I’m asking myself what the point in sticking around is
Mammoth_Line_595@reddit
Fuck. This news fucking destroyed me. Penguins are my favorite animals since I was a child, I literally have several items of them including keychains and plushies, I'm even hugging one right now. I'm crying, my heart is breaking into a million pieces.
extinction6@reddit
"The IUCN assessment projects that the emperor penguin population will halve by the 2080s" and can anyone name another species who's population may be halved by the 2080's?, like humans perhaps? A child born now will be 54 years old then and I can't imagine how horrific life might be by then.
Humans have the capacity to prevent needless human suffering but there's no money to be made doing it.
Exact-Sheepherder797@reddit
I wish we didn't take everything with us
victoriaisme2@reddit
And yet people still argue about why they refuse to give up their giant trucks or SUVs, why they refuse to eat less meat. I loathe most of humanity.
h0ldplay@reddit
Fucking devastating. More innocent creatures needlessly suffering from human greed.
BadgerKomodo@reddit
This makes me so fucking sad, and the fact that we’re powerless to prevent it makes me even sadder :(
NyriasNeo@reddit
At this point, it is not likely there is anything we can do about the warming. We already passed 1.5C and blew through 2C briefly. We have no way to suck a significant amount of co2 out of the air. Even if we go net zero, and of course we won't as "drill baby drill" won, the current warming is going to continue.
May be you can save a few by putting them in a zoo or an artificial environment. But that won't save the species.
So if they go extinct, they go extinct whether you like it or now. All we can do is accept and make peace.
cdollas250@reddit
i dont like this and i want it to stop
SRod1706@reddit
All the changes that we have made to the planet have left so many animals with their extinction in the wild already baked in. A lot of our changes are yet to be fully realized.
Zellator@reddit
Fuck, man
Top_Hair_8984@reddit
💔😕
myshtree@reddit
Trump’s tariffs caused this!
Peak_District_hill@reddit
Just when I thought i was inured to grim news.
Portalrules123@reddit
Just when I thought the news couldn’t get much worse today….rest in peace, penguins :(
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/wanton_wonton_:
The mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks as sea ice is melted by the climate crisis has led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to declare the species officially in danger of extinction.
Four of the five known emperor penguin breeding sites in the Bellingshausen Sea collapsed in 2022, with the loss of thousands of chicks. Another colony in the Weddell Sea collapsed in 2016. Researchers called the catastrophes “grim” and “extraordinarily distressing”.
The Antarctic fur seal population has also dropped by more than half since 1999, according to IUCN. The decline is the result of rising ocean temperatures pushing krill to greater depths in search of colder water, reducing the availability of food for seals. Krill shortages at South Georgia island have slashed the survival of pups in their first year.
The southern elephant seal is also now at risk of extinction, the IUCN said, having been hit by bird flu outbreaks since 2020. The disease has affected four of the five major subpopulations, killing more than 90% of newborn pups in some colonies.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1sglma4/mass_drowning_of_chicks_puts_emperor_penguins_at/of5thr8/
j_mantuf@reddit
Penguin chicks drowning is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read