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I’m sure they don’t mind, they just need to bloop around being all penguin-y while our scientists study their habits and habitat. :)
By counting penguins in images taken from space, scientists estimate the population of emperor penguins was around 595,000 in 2009 — roughly double previous estimates of between 270,000 and 350,000, reports a study led by the British Antarctic Survey.
Emperor penguins, which stand as tall as a six-year-old child, breed and spend much of their lives on sea ice that is expected to melt significantly in coming decades.
“But it’s very hard to predict how this will affect emperor penguin numbers if you don’t have an idea of how many there are in the first place,” Fretwell said.
Previously, it had been very difficult to get an accurate count of emperor penguins because the birds breed in such harsh, remote areas during the Antarctic winter, and it’s hard for scientists to get there, Fretwell said.
The recent satellite count located four previously unknown colonies, and two or three others that had been thought to exist, but had never been located. The results show that colonies exist all the way around the Antarctic coastline, not just in certain areas where researchers had found previously known colonies.
Technology rocks, I really cannot imagine having to actually go to Antarctica and counting these fellows by hand. Full marks to the biologists who did so before we went all spy cam on our penguin friends.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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