Breeding and post-breeding foraging locations of Adélie penguins at Hope Bay/Esperanza, Antarctic Peninsula

SANTOS, MERCEDES; TRATHAN P; HINKE JT; BARRERA ORO, ESTEBAN RODRIGO; THANASSEKOS S; CORIA N; DOWNIE R; WOOD A; REID K

Auckland

Congreso; SCAR OPEN SCIENCE CONFERENCE XXXIII, Auckland, New Zealand; 2014

SCAR

Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) are important predators that act as central place foragers during the breeding season. Along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) constitutes their main prey. Recently, it has been widely reported that Adélie populations are decreasing throughout the WAP, a region where rapid climate warming has been recorded and where a large commercial fishery for krill currently operates. Adélie penguins are believed to respond to changes in the availability of species which may be targeted by a fishery, such as krill. They are therefore considered by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) as an indicator of the state of the ecosystem. If information from monitoring programs indicates that these populations are decreasing in the area, possibly related to climate change and/or commercial fishing activity, CCAMLR may consider the introduction of new fishery management measures which could include changes to the spatial and temporal operations of the fishery, to mitigate the impact of the fishery on Adélie penguin populations. However, new management actions require knowledge of Adélie penguin summer and winter distributions throughout the WAP region. Here, we present for the first time, tracking data from Adélie penguins during two breeding seasons (2012-13 and 2013-14) from the Hope Bay/Esperanza breeding population together with data on the distribution of the krill fishery. During summer the birds foraged less than 100 km from the colony. During the pre-moulting period, preliminary results suggest that Adélie penguins continue to feed close to their colonies, which contrasts with the movement patterns of Adélie penguins from the South Orkney Islands. These birds exhibited large-scale southern movements to areas remote from their colony before moult and subsequent dispersal even further afield. This work highlights the need to understand the distribution of predators, such as the Adélie penguin, during breeding and during their post-breeding dispersal in relation to fisheries activities in the WAP. Furthermore, another aim was to emphasize the benefits of collaboration amongst different countries and CCAMLR, as a constructive way to help manage the living resources in the Southern Ocean.