Penguin massacre

AN ESTIMATED 150,000 Adelie penguins have died in Antartica after a huge iceberg became grounded near their colony and they were forced to trek miles to the sea for food.

Living in Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay, the penguins used to live near a large body of open water but in 2010 an enormous iceberg measuring 2900sq km became trapped in the bay, effectively landlocking them.

The catastrophic situation sees the penguins now having to waddle more than 30 miles to the coast in order to find fish. Experts, concerned by the ongoing situation, have found that the colony has shrunk from 160,000 penguins to just 10,000 in the past five years alone.

The findings were made by the Climate Change Research Centre in New South Wales and the scientists have predicted that the colony will disappear in just a few decades unless significant action is taken to dislodge or break up the iceberg.