ALONG ROAD but a win for African Penguins

but a win for African Penguins

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The population of the African Penguin, once the most abundant coastal seabird in the cold waters of South Africa and Namibia, has declined catastrophically in recent years. It is now classified by the IUCN as Critically Endangered, one step away from extinction, and is the first of the 18 penguin species to be accorded this unfortunate status. A key driver of its demise has been a shortage of its preferred prey, anchovies and sardines, which are also targeted by the purse-seine fishery. In Namibia, the African Penguin population plummeted in the 1960s and ’70s following a crash in sardine and anchovy numbers. South Africa’s African Penguins have followed a similar trajectory since the turn of this century.

Unable to fly, foraging African Penguins are limited to a relatively small area around their colonies when they attend to their eggs and chicks while breeding. They also spend a considerable amount of time near their colonies before and after their moult. This process of replacing their feathers lasts three weeks, during which time they are land-bound and lose up to half their body mass.

Competition for prey with the commercial purse-seine fishery was recognised by South African scientists as a potential threat to African Penguins as far back as the 1970s. This threat became more apparent in the early 21st century and recommendations to close foraging areas around African Penguin colonies to purse-seine fishing were originally proposed in 2006 by Dr Rob Crawford, a scientist at the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT).