{
  "id": 19641648,
  "title": "British Antarctic Survey begins a season featuring the largest-ever penguin census",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/12/british-antarctic-survey-begins-a-season-featuring-the-largest-ever",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-11-12T10:51:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "MercoPress",
    "slug": "mercopress",
    "url": "https://en.mercopress.com/2026/11/12/british-antarctic-survey-begins-a-season-featuring-the-largest-ever-penguin-census"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) kicked off its 2026/27 research season in late October, marking the commencement of the largest-ever penguin census on the continent. Flights from British Rothera station and Chile’s Marsh station on King George Island facilitated the operation. The season commenced with the departure of the polar icebreaker RRS Sir David Attenborough from the UK, which runs on hydrotreated vegetable oil as part of BAS's emission reduction efforts, and the arrival of its aircraft at Rothera. A team of scientists and support staff will be stationed across five British research sites. The census will employ an aerial camera system in a Twin Otter aircraft, previously successfully utilized, to count approximately 200 colonies of Adélie, chinstrap, and gentoo penguins across the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Shetland, Elephant Island, and South Orkney groups. This data will assist researchers in understanding population fluctuations and the potential impact of krill fishing, contributing to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Additional projects include the deployment of a drone-based monitoring system for humpback whales, whose populations are recovering post-commercial whaling, and a multinational study to investigate the variability of warm water flow to the Amundsen Sea, a significant driver of ice loss in West Antarctica. The study will use the autonomous submarine Autosub Long Range. Other researchers will examine the protective snow layer on ice shelves, collaborate with NASA and the California Institute of Technology to deploy an instrument beneath the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, and mark the 40th year of a groundfish survey at King Edward Point station in South Georgia, one of the longest records in the Southern Ocean. BAS Director Professor Dame Jane Francis emphasized the importance of collaboration, noting the participation of researchers from Chile, the Netherlands, the United States, and Australia, as well as the value of long-term monitoring programs.",
  "summary": "The British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the UK’s national operator in Antarctica, began its 2026/27 research season in late October, including the largest penguin census ever carried out on the continent, with flights from the British Rothera station and from Chile’s Marsh station on King George Island.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}