Antarctica's penguin population has slumped because of global warming as melting ice has destroyed nesting sites and reduced their sources of food, a WWF report said on yesterday.

The Antarctic peninsula is warming five times faster than the average in the rest of the world, affecting four penguin species - the emperor penguin, the largest and the grandest in the world, the gentoo, chinstrap and adelie, it said.

"The Antarctic penguins already have a long march behind them," Anna Reynolds, deputy director of WWF's Global Climate Change Programme, said in a statement at the Bali climate talks.