By RIA Novosti
Moscow : The penguin population in Antarctica has sharply decreased due to global warming, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report said.
The report, titled “Antarctic Penguins and Climate Change”, was read out at a UN international climate change conference in Bali Tuesday.
It said the rapid melting of ice in Antarctica was killing the habitual habitat of penguins as well as reducing their food resources.
A WWF website, www.panda.org, said the report “shows that the four populations of penguins that breed on the Antarctic continent – Adelie, Emperor, Chinstrap and Gentoo – are under escalating pressure”.
“In the northwestern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, where warming has been the most dramatic, populations of Adelie penguins have dropped by 65 percent over the past 25 years,” the website said.
“The Antarctic penguins already have a long march behind them,” the site quoted Anna Reynolds of WWF’s Global Climate Change Programme as saying.
“Now it seems these icons of the Antarctic will have to face an extremely tough battle to adapt to the unprecedented rate of climate change.”