Researchers from San Jose State University are in Antarctica studying emperor penguins and how climate change is affecting them.
"The birds are doing very different things" said Birgitte McDonald with SJSU's Moss Landing Marine Labs. "And they're traveling further than we thought they would."
The researchers are examining how the penguins get their food and if that changes with a receding ice shelf, could they survive and continue to reproduce.
"If we want to see how they respond to environmental change, we need to know where they go to find food and how hard they work to get there," McDonald said.
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The team slowly surrounds each bird and wraps them up in what they call a "big hug," and then place a tracker that works like a Fitbit or Apple Watch.
And when the penguins return from feeding the scientists collect the tracker and harvest the data. The device can map everything from the penguin's route to how fast it swims -- some travel 30 miles to eat.
The research is the beginning of a five-year project. The SJSU crew will not be Antarctica the whole time, but will be checking back with the penguins often.
