Largest colony of king penguins shrinks by 90%

LONDON: The world's biggest colony of king penguins has reduced by a staggering 88% over the past 35 years, according to scientists who said that the reason for collapse remains a mystery.


Known since the 1960s, the colony on Ile aux Cochons, an island in the Indian Ocean, had the distinction of being the world's biggest colony of king penguins and second biggest of all penguins. However, due to its isolation and inaccessibility, no new estimates of its size were made over the past decades.


Researchers from French National Center for Scientific Research and French Polar Institute used high-resolution satellite images to measure changes in the size of the colony since the island was last visited by scientists (1982). At the time, the colony included 5,00,000 breeding pairs and over two million penguins. The numbers have reduced to 60,000 pairs.