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By
RAY LILLEY
WELLINGTON,
New Zealand (AP) - A remnant of the largest iceberg ever
recorded is blocking Antarctica's McMurdo Sound, threatening
tens of thousands of penguin chicks with starvation and
cutting off a supply route for three science stations,
a New Zealand official said Tuesday.
The iceberg, known as B15A, measures about 3,000 square
kilometres, said Lou Sanson, chief executive of the government
scientific agency Antarctica New Zealand. He called it
"the largest floating thing on the planet right now"
and said U.S. researchers estimate it contains enough
water to supply Egypt's Nile River complex for 80 years.
It is so big it has blocked wind and water currents that
break up ice floes in McMurdo Sound during the Antarctic
summer, which begins later this month. The U.S. McMurdo
Station and New Zealand's Scott Base are located on the
sound. Italy's Terra Nova base is nearby.
The iceberg is in the path of four ships due to arrive
in Antarctica in a month with fuel and food for the three
stations. Scientists are looking into solutions, including
breaking a 130-kilometre path through the ice.
While the situation is a growing concern, the bases are
not immediately in danger of running out of supplies,
Sanson said.
The same cannot be said for the newborn Adele penguins.
Tens of thousands of the chicks could starve in coming
weeks because the ice build-up in the sound has cut off
their parents' access to waters where they catch their
fish, Sanson said.
Currently there is "more fast (blocked) ice in McMurdo
Sound than we've ever recorded in living history for this
time of year," Sanson said.
The penguins are important to scientists as markers of
environmental chance, such as global warming. The iceberg
is threatening two of four colonies in the area that scientists
have been studying for 25 years.
One is on Cape Royds, where 3,000 breeding pairs of Adele
penguins now face a 180-kilometre round trip to bring
food to chicks at their nesting grounds. The parents cannot
survive such a long journey without eating much of the
food they have gathered for their young, Sanson said.
Penguins carry the food for their young in a pouch in
their necks and will eat it themselves if they are hungry
enough.
"Penguin researchers are predicting that the annual
hatching is pretty certain to fail," Sanson said,
meaning most chicks will die.
Likewise, scientists fear that only about 10 per cent
of the 50,000 breeding pairs of Adele penguins at nearby
Cape Bird will rear a chick this season, Sanson said.
Adult penguins there face a 100-kilometre round trip across
the ice to reach open water and food.
New Zealand research scientist Peter Wilson said the
ice blockage "is a very serious event for these colonies."
Penguins breed for the first time at three years of age.
Wilson expected the Cape Royds chicks would hatch but
die of starvation and the bulk of the Cape Bird chicks
could die.
"It could all fail ... and more than 50,000 souls
will have gone west again," he said, referring to
penguins.
Wilson, New Zealand's project leader for the study of
the four Adele penguin colonies in the region, said he
was sure all the colonies would survive, though their
numbers could decline by up to 70 per cent.
Antarctica New Zealand is working with the United States
and Italian Antarctic programs on alternatives for receiving
vital fuel supplies for their science bases in late January.
A U.S. icebreaker, fuel tanker and cargo ship plus an
Italian cargo vessel are due to deliver a year's supply
of fuel and food at that time, he said.
The alternatives are to break a 130-kilometre channel
through the pack ice to reach Winter Quarters Bay on the
McMurdo Sound coast, or offload the fuel and other supplies
on the ice edge, pumping fuel through temporary lines
several kilometres to storage tanks, he said.
All Antarctic bases have contingency supplies of a year's
food and fuel, Sanson said.
The iceberg is located between McMurdo Sound and Franklin
Island to the south and is moving north toward the sound
at about two kilometres a day. The concern is it will
stick on the Ross Ice Shelf, which forms part of the sound
and stay there, causing still more problems.
The iceberg is a remnant of one that broke off the Ross
Shelf in 2000. That one measured about 11,000 square kilometres,
the size of the Caribbean island of Jamaica, and was the
largest iceberg ever recorded.
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CNEWS-
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