WASHINGTON – Scientists looking for lost penguins stumbled upon
an effective method: Follow their poop from space.
In remote Antarctica,
about one-and-a-half times bigger than the United States,
researchers have been unable to figure out just where colonies of
emperor penguins live and if their population is in peril.
It's harder still because emperor penguins, featured in the film
"March of the Penguins," breed on sea ice, which
scientists say will shrink significantly in the future because of
global warming. Because the large penguins stay on the
same ice for months, their poop stains make them stand out from
space.
Scientists at the British
Antarctic Survey found this out by accident when they were
looking at satellite images of their bases. A
reddish-brown streak on the colorless ice was right where they knew
a colony was, said survey mapping scientist Peter Fretwell.
The stain was penguin poo — particularly smelly stuff — and it
gave researchers an idea to search for brown stains to find
penguins. They found the same telltale trail, usually dark enough
to spot from space, all over the continent, said Fretwell by
telephone from England.
Using satellite data, the scientists found 10 new colonies of
penguins, six colonies that had moved from previously mapped
positions to new spots and another six that seemed to have
disappeared. Overall, 38 colonies were spotted from above,
according to Fretwell's paper, "Penguins From Space" in the journal
Global Ecology and Biogeography.
"It's a very important result scientifically, even though it's a
lighthearted method," Fretwell said Monday.
Even though Antarctic sea ice hasn't melted so far, scientists
predict it to shrink by one-third by the end of the century,
potentially threatening the birds, Fretwell said.
The research is "incredibly useful," because the only time to
see emperors are during breeding in winter when weather makes it
nearly impossible to get to the colonies, said longtime penguin
researcher William Fraser, who wasn't involved in the study. Fraser
noted that salty penguin guano "over time will corrode your boots,"
adding that he has lost nearly a dozen pairs to poop in 35 years of
penguin research.
since Penguin poop are so salty, they would make poor
fertilisers
