According to scientists, an estimated 150,000 Adelie penguins have been reported dead on Antarctica's Cape Denison during the last five years since a huge giant iceberg has hindered their main access to food.

Recently published in the journal Antarctic Science, a study said that the B09B iceberg hit the Mertz Glacier Tongue and got stuck in Commonwealth Bay, a region that was hardly ever covered by sea-ice, making it apt for Adelie penguin colonies.

The B09B include an area of nearly 1,120 square miles. It obstructed the penguins' natural feeding areas starting in December 2010. The large part of ice enforced the birds to walk over 37 miles, looking for food, and gradually decreased the population to only a few thousand.

On Monday, while speaking to The Associated Press, Chris Fogwill, a co-author of the study, said, “We saw a lot of dead carcasses, particularly the young, which was terrible to see. But the really important thing is that the penguins are just not coming back to that area”.

Fogwill along with other scientists at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia with New Zealand's West Coast Penguin Trust conducted the survey in 2013-14.

Adelie penguins are present across Antarctica. They are famous for being sociable and assembling in groups and for their outlook as that of the classic tuxedoed penguin.

Researchers said that it is difficult to know how much time the Adelie penguins will take to recolonize the Commonwealth Bay region. In the worst case scenario, lacking natural breeding cycle and in absence of new members, the colony may vanish in nearly two decades.