This is sobering

 

This article from The Guardian says that the likelihood of the extinction of emperor penguins in the next few decades is more than a possibility.

And that's really, really, troubling and sad.

I have studied emperor penguins for 30 years. We may witness their demise in our lifetime -- Barbara Wienecke

"Watching the warming-induced changes at the western Antarctic peninsula over the years, as many penguin researchers, I have been concerned about the future. It is important to understand that it does not take the complete loss of sea ice (which may still take decades), but a shortening of the sea ice season, to threaten the emperors’ continued existence.

Untimely break-out events probably happened throughout the history of emperor penguins. Occasional complete breeding failure is devastating for the chicks, but the population is not threatened. Adults will return the following year and will try again to raise a chick. However, frequent catastrophic breeding failure greatly diminish the number of penguins recruiting into the population threatening its long-term survival. Over several years now, the sea ice has formed later in autumn and has not lasted as long as it used to in summer. Recently, several colonies experienced early ice break-outs and consequently huge chick losses. But what happened in the Bellingshausen Sea is unprecedented. Significant chick deaths occurred at multiple colonies in the same region and the same year."

Here are a couple more links about this.

Loss of sea ice causes catastrophic breeding failure for emperor penguins

Emperor penguins may disappear by the end of this century