Greenpeace study on penguin decline far-fetched or fraudulent?

Where’s the paper?

Does Greenpeace expect us to accept their numbers without demur? To accept the cause they suggest? When can we question the researchers? A few inquiries raise serious questions about the study’s credibility. This is how the story begins on the Greenpeace website, with the headline shown in the screen grab:

February 10, 2020 Scientists surveying chinstrap penguin colonies in the Antarctic have found drastic reductions in many colonies, with some declining by as much as 77 percent since they were last surveyed almost 50 years ago.

The independent researchers, on a Greenpeace expedition to the region, found that every single colony surveyed on Elephant Island, an important habitat northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula, had declined. The number of chinstrap penguins on Elephant Island has dropped almost 60 percent since the last survey in 1971, with a total count of only 52,786 breeding pairs of chinstrap penguins, plummeting from previous survey estimates of around 122,550 pairs. Continue Reading →

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