Multimedia Gallery
Antarctic Wildlife--Adelie penguin and chicks
An Adelie penguin and her two chicks.
More about this image
The Adelie penguin colony at Cape Royds, Ross Island, Antarctica, numbered about 1,200 breeding pairs in 2005-2006, as opposed to about 4,000 in years past. The unusually thick sea ice means that parents need to walk 80 kilometers to get food for their chicks, which is causing many of the chicks to starve. In a normal year, there would be open water next to the colony in January.
For more information about the problem, read the Jan. 29, 2006, issue of The Antarctic Sun, "Ice Conditions Send Penguins Packing."
Studies of Adelie penguins is just one example of the many research projects supported by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP). Other Antarctic study areas are aeronomy and astrophysics, biology and medicine, geology and geophysics, glaciology, and ocean and climate systems. Outreach such as the Antarctic Artists and Writers program and education programs are also supported.
NSF also maintains three U.S. research stations on the continent. For more information about USAP, visit the program's website.
To view other Antarctic wildlife, search for "Antarctic wildlife" using the Multimedia Gallery's search engine. [Note: Please see "Special Restrictions" below regarding use of this image.] (Date of Image: Dec. 31, 2005)
Credit: Patrick Rowe, NSF
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