It was while surfing the waves of Ocean Beach that the Australian Aaron Fowler, a friend and his children saw this emperor penguin two weeks ago. (Aptenodytes forsteri). Named Gus, the animal was walking on the beach, malnourished and disoriented. An unusual crossing of the Indian Ocean of more than 3000 km which alerted the local population and specialists.
An unexpected encounter
The news is hard to believe for Carol Biddulph, accredited keeper from the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) who took it in: “Never, even in my wildest thoughts, would I have thought that one day I would have to take care of an emperor penguin”, she confided in an interview shared by the DBCA.
The body quickly took care of the bird, in order to feed and rehydrate it. But is he really an emperor? If certain populations of penguins take up residence on the beaches of Australia, they are very different from Gus. Measuring one meter, the penguin is much larger than its peers.
The presence of an emperor penguin on the Australian coast is surprising to say the least, but also alarming. According to experts, never before has an individual of this species ventured this far. Two cases have already been observed in New Zealand, which nevertheless remains closer to Antarctica.
Gus the penguin got lost?
When it arrived on the Australian beach, the bird weighed 21.5kg, according to the DBCA. It could therefore be a young penguin, which got lost while trying to explore the waters on its own. But by observing its plumage, scientists believe it may also be an older male. An adult weighs around 40kg, so Gus's weight would indicate that he is malnourished. “The individual moved away from Antarctic waters for an unknown reason and probably found itself in areas poorer in food, which after a while forced it out of water”, presumes Michel Gauthier-Clerc, veterinarian and doctor in ecology at the University of Geneva, in the columns of Le Figaro.
Also interviewed by the daily, Yvon Le Maho, research director at the CNRS at the University of Strasbourg, offers another scenario. According to him, the penguin could have left its colony, looking for a partner, before getting lost. “When they fail to reproduce, they leave the colony to try to mate elsewhere,” indicates this seabird specialist.
A species threatened by climate change
That the penguin could have gotten lost is one thing, but how can we explain such a significant distance? In an interview reported by the Washington Post, Ryan Reisinger, associate professor of marine ecology at the University of Southampton, explains that climate change “makes the environment different from what the animals are used to, perhaps less predictable, causing them to become more exploratory”.
However, this theory leaves some scientists skeptical, like Yvon Le Maho: “Certainly, it is very surprising to see that a penguin could drift into warm waters, but if the warming of Antarctica was to blame, we would rather expect the animal to drift to higher latitudes following or by looking for cold currents, rich in potential prey”.
In a study published in August 2021 in the journal Global Change Biology, the scientists predicted a near extinction of the species by 2100. And for good reason, its habitat is greatly disrupted by global warming: the ice sheets on which the penguins rest and reproduce are melting due to emissions of gases greenhouse (GHG).
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