In 1902, Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition reached Cape Crozier on Ross Island and found something no one had documented before: a breeding colony of emperor penguins. It was one of the expedition’s quieter milestones, recorded alongside the geographic firsts. A century and a quarter later, that same species has been classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List — alongside the Antarctic fur seal.

The numbers are blunt. Emperor penguins lost roughly 10% of their population between 2009 and 2018 — more than 20,000 adults gone, according to satellite data cited by the IUCN. Population modelling projects a 50% decline by the 2080s if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current rates. The Antarctic fur seal’s collapse has been even steeper: from an estimated 2.18 million mature individuals in 1999 to 944,000 in 2025, a drop of more than 50 percent in a single generation.

The drivers differ in detail but converge on the same cause. Emperor penguins depend on “fast ice” — sea ice anchored to the coastline — for breeding, moulting, and raising chicks. Since 2016, Antarctic sea ice has hit repeated record lows, according to the IUCN assessment. When the ice breaks up before chicks can swim, entire colonies can be lost in a season. For fur seals, the mechanism runs through the food chain: warming surface waters are pushing Antarctic krill deeper and farther offshore, making them harder to reach. Pup survival at South Georgia has dropped sharply, leaving an ageing breeding population.

The southern elephant seal was also uplisted this week, to Vulnerable, after outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza killed more than 90% of newborn pups in some colonies.

The “Endangered” category is the same one that houses giant pandas and Bengal tigers. What makes these listings different is the speed. The fur seal went from Least Concern to Endangered in roughly a decade. These are no longer distant projections. They are population counts — taken from satellite images and beach surveys — and they are falling now.

Sources

• IUCN: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now Endangered due to climate change – IUCN Red List — IUCN
• The beloved emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal are now officially endangered. Here’s what can be done — The Conversation
• These two iconic polar species have been driven to endangered status by climate change — CNN