00:04Penguins are on the front line of the climate war as they often hang out in the coldest places on
00:09earth places like Antarctica where many species of penguins call these giant ice sheets home homes
00:15that will literally melt away as the planet continues to get warmer which is why experts
00:19from Stony Brook University are now counting penguins hoping to track their populations
00:23because of what those numbers can tell us about our climate at large this is polar ecology
00:28researcher Michael Wethington to explain we can use penguins as a sort of bio indicator to see how
00:34the rest of the ecosystem is operating penguins conveniently come to the same nesting sites over
00:41and over and over year after year and so we have this reliable signature of you know what are how
00:48many individuals are there from one year to the next and how does this play out sort of over over
00:53decades or even longer timescales and in certain areas they have found differing results in
00:58western parts of Antarctica specifically the Weddell Sea Adelie penguin populations have been thriving
01:03as that area is warming at a slower rate but in other areas the species has not been so lucky
01:08as
01:09ice masses have continued to decline at an alarming rate however the good news is that their numbers
01:14overall have remained stable something they say means now is the time to begin putting protections
01:18in place for the tuxedo clad climate vanguard
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