Adélie penguin breeder abundance in CCAMLR Divisions 58.4.1 and 58.4.2

WG-EMM-STAPP is charged with estimating krill consumption by the major air-breathing predators of the Southern Ocean including ice-breeding seals, fur seals, penguins and flying seabirds. The priority region for estimation is Area 48, but the krill consumption estimates are also being developed for other regions around Antarctica under the work program of WG-EMM-STAPP as a basis for management of future krill fisheries in those regions. We present here estimates of the breeding Adélie penguin population for Divisions 58.4.1 and 58.4.2 in east Antarctica. We estimated that around 1.31 million pairs of Adelie penguins were attempting to breed at the time of the surveys in Divisions 58.4.1 and 58.4.2. This estimate is substantially higher than the previously available estimate in Woehler (1993) of 767,000 breeding pairs. This difference is likely to be due to a combination of newly discovered breeding sites contributing to the revised estimate, the use of new methods to adjust raw counts, and real population increases.