“I'm seeing penguins die. This year, it was a really tragic year to go down and witness it. Normally, when you go down to Antarctica in February at the end of the season, there's still a lot of snow on the ground. And the penguins are, you know, are just getting ready to go to sea.
But what we witnessed this year was this is the most rainfall they've had. And all the snow was gone in these places which are normally covered in snow. And the penguins, when they're in their very vulnerable downy phase, they've got this fluffy down that keeps them warm, and that's there until they get their adult feathers which allow them to repel water and go to sea.
And at that phase, they can't get wet but snow can be - is very dry. It's a safe environment for them. But when they get wet and it rains, you start to see a lot of dead penguins. And another thing that we have to address in Antarctica with penguins is, you know, krill has become the new latest craze for humans. It's the new cool protein. It's the omega 3s that we like to eat. And to go down to Antarctica and see factory ships that are 800 feet long pulling out hundreds of millions of pounds of krill and shipping that off to market.” - nicklen
