The world's largest king penguin community has shrunk by nearly 90%.

island of Kochon in the southern Indian Ocean is considered the world's largest habitat for king penguins, but a new study has found that the number of king penguins living there has plummeted by 88% since 1982.
Researchers in France and South Africa report in a new issue of the British journal
that after analyzing helicopter and satellite images, they found that the king penguin community on Kochon had shrunk dramatically over the past 30 years, with about 500,000 pairs in breeding in 1982 and only about 60,000 left.
penguins are mainly found on several ice-free islands in the southern Indian Ocean near the Antarctic continent, and are the second largest penguin in size, after emperor penguins. King penguins feed mainly on crustaceans such as krill and small fish and squid, who go out for food but live in the same habitat all the time.
researchers say further research is needed on why the king penguin community on Kochon Island has shrunk dramatically. They speculate that this may have something to do with climate change. Climate change could cause fish and shrimp to leave the king penguin's foraging range, which in turn could lead to a decline in the king penguin population. In addition, increased population density due to increased competition for survival, poultry cholera and other factors may also be the cause of the sharp decline in its numbers. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)