As many as 1,50,000 Adelie penguins have died in Antarctica’s Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay, since an iceberg the size of Rome blocked their access to the closest body of water. Research carried out by the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia, found that the colony of 1,60,000 penguins shrunk to only 10,000 since 2011. This is because the penguins were forced to make a 60-km journey to find fish.

A giant iceberg measuring some 2,900 sq km became trapped in the bay in 2010, making the colony in East Antarctica landlocked. Scientists believe the colony will disappear in 20 years unless the iceberg is dislodged or broken up. The mass of ice named B09B had apparently been floating near the coast for two decades before crashing into the glacier and getting stuck.