Penguin catastrophe
A penguin colony in Antarctica has suffered a massive breeding failure, with only two chicks surviving the disaster.
Terre Adélie (Adélie Land) is home to more than 18,000 pairs of Adélie penguins, but this year almost all the seabirds' babies starved to death. The World Wildlife Fund said unseasonably extensive amounts of sea ice around the colony in East Antarctica had forced the adult penguins to travel further than normal to forage for food. Dead penguin chicks were strewn across beaches in Adélie Land.
It is the second time in recent years that the colony has been badly hit during the breeding season; four years ago no chicks survived when rain followed by a sudden cold snap meant they became soaked and subsequently froze to death.
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