Almost two-thirds of the population of chinstrap penguins have disappeared from a remote volcanic island near Antarctica, aerial surveys suggest. Zavodovski Island was home to the largest penguin colony in the world, but researchers who carried out the surveys say it has now lost that accolade. According to the study, there were 63% fewer occuplied nests of chinstrap penguins in 2025 than at the same time in 2011.
The research team say climate change is affecting the birds' food supply and survival, and the penguins may now be officially endangered. Another species of penguin, the macaroni, also nests on the island and is thriving, which scientists believe is linked to their more varied diet. Zavodovski is part of the South Sandwich Islands, a remote archipelago north of the Antarctic continent which is a UK overseas territory.
In 2011, it was hailed by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) as home to the largest penguin colony in the world - with an estimated 600,000 chinstrap penguins and 90,000 macaroni penguins nesting on its bleak, rocky terrain. BAS, which led this new research, says it is "one of the most extreme places in the world to undertake fieldwork". A BAS team sailed for 15 days to reach the island and study its avian inhabitants, using drones, aerial photography and fitting tracking devices to 20 birds.
This research and satellite imagery suggested that - between 2011 and 2025 - the number of occupied chinstrap penguin nests declined by 63%. The researchers say the "alarming" fall in the chinstrap population is all about the food supply and rising ocean temperatures brought about by climate change. Prof Norman Ratcliffe, who led the research, explained that the chinstraps' "specialist diet" and preference for cooler waters appears to have left them vulnerable.
"With waters warming, the krill [that the chinstrap penguins eat] have moved southwards. "Sea-ice cover to the south and a lack of suitable islands for nesting prevents chinstraps from following the food," he said. The team examined other possible threats to the penguins' precarious existence on their remote island.
Birds here nest in the shadow of an active volcano - Mount Curry, also aptly known as Mount Asphyxsia. Sites downwind of the volcano have been given names including Stench Point, Noxious Bluff and Asphyxia Plain, because of the smell of fumes emitted from the crater. Mount Curry's last major eruption was back in 2016, but the penguin declines that this study analysed have been steady and ongoing since 2011, suggesting that something else was happening.
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