Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation

[Lisbeth]

OPINIONISTA

Ship-to-ship fuel bunkering must urgently be included as a Listed Activity under SA’s environmental law

By Kate Handley | 20 Sep 2022 ( Kate Handley is an environmental attorney and co-founder of the Biodiversity Law Centre, a new non-profit organisation that seeks to use the law to reverse the catastrophic decline of biological diversity in southern Africa.

St Croix Island in Algoa Bay was once home to the world’s largest breeding colony of African penguins. But the population has plummeted by an estimated 85% since 2016, and this dramatic decline has been linked to ship-to-ship bunkering.
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Algoa Bay is an area of exceptional biodiversity and ecological sensitivity. This is recognised by the declaration of the Addo Elephant Marine Protected Area, the Algoa to Amathole Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area (offshore of Gqeberha), and the inclusion of Bird Island and St Croix Island within a global network of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, supporting respectively globally important populations of the endangered African penguin and Cape gannet.

The bay is also an important site for migratory humpback and southern right whales as well as resident populations of bottlenose and common dolphins and Bryde’s whales.

But Algoa Bay is also one of South Africa’s busiest shipping routes, and commercial ship-to-ship (STS) marine fuel bunkering activities, which began in 2016, are threatening its sensitive biodiversity beyond the point at which it may be able to recover.

In 2015, Algoa Bay supported 54% of South Africa’s population of African penguins. St Croix Island was the largest colony of this species by a significant margin, contributing 40% of the South African population.

Since then, the Algoa Bay population has decreased from 10,906 breeding pairs to just 2,821, constituting only 28% of the South African population, with the St Croix colony now being the fourth-largest in South Africa (Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment 2022, unpublished data).

STS bunkering, which involves the transfer of fuel from one vessel to another while at sea, is a high-risk operation that can cause severe marine pollution through oil and fuel spills. In addition, bunkering operations attract large vessels into the bay, increasing shipping traffic and noise, which has a demonstrable impact on foraging and breeding patterns.

As it is, bunkering activities have had devastating impacts on endangered seabird populations. Four significant oil spills have occurred since 2016 as a result of incidents associated with STS bunkering, resulting in significant numbers of oiled seabirds.

A groundbreaking new study has also recently provided the first scientific evidence that an increase in vessel-driven noise after STS bunkering began in Algoa Bay in 2016 was significantly associated with the fastest short-term decline of an African penguin population on record (an 85% decline of the once largest colony at St Croix Island since 2016).

Given the immense risks that STS bunkering activities pose to marine biodiversity, the fact that three long-term licences have been awarded to conduct such activities in Algoa Bay in the absence of comprehensive environmental impact assessments (EIA) having been conducted seems unfathomable.

But currently, STS bunkering is not listed in the EIA Regulations under the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (Nema). This means STS bunkering may be authorised without the full range of direct, indirect and cumulative impacts being assessed, and without stakeholders being consulted.

The only regulatory requirements for conducting STS bunkering are a licence from the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) (in terms of section 80(2) of the National Ports Act, 2005 and the National Ports Rules) and permission from the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) under section 21 of the Marine Pollution (Control and Civil Liability) Act, 1981. Neither of these two statutes make provision for an EIA before the authorisation of bunkering.

In addition, draft Codes of Practice for Bunkering and STS Transfers have been developed by Samsa, but these do not go nearly far enough in assessing and addressing the full range of environmental impacts associated with STS bunkering. Furthermore, the codes will not have the force of law and their implementation therefore cannot be enforced. The situation is woefully inadequate, considering the future of an endangered species is at stake.

Given the significant impacts that STS bunkering is having and may continue to have on marine biodiversity, the Biodiversity Law Centre, together with BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob wrote to Environment Minister Barbara Creecy on 9 September 2022 requesting that STS bunkering be included as a Listed Activity under the EIA Regulations.

The purpose of this is to bring such activities within the ambit of integrated environmental management and the regulatory framework imposed by Nema. This means that a full EIA would be required that identifies, predicts and evaluates the actual and potential impacts of STS bunkering on the environment, socioeconomic conditions and cultural heritage.

Crucially, listing STS bunkering provides an opportunity for public participation in the EIA process, which ensures that relevant information from stakeholders is placed before the competent authority when deciding whether or not to authorise STS bunkering.

Requiring an EIA before granting an environmental authorisation also gives the competent authority the opportunity to impose enforceable conditions, thereby mitigating potential negative impacts and ensuring the bunkering activities are conducted with as little risk to marine biodiversity, tourism and livelihoods as possible.

Including STS bunkering as a Listed Activity would also bring the activity within the ambit of the compliance and enforcement provisions of Nema, enabling the imposition of significant penalties for any non-compliance, and is consistent with South Africa’s obligations under international law.

A moratorium is currently in place which puts on hold all new applications for bunkering in Algoa Bay until a comprehensive risk assessment has been conducted. This assessment is being undertaken under the auspices of the TNPA, but there are doubts as to whether it will adequately address the full extent of the risks associated with STS bunkering.

In any event, a one-off general risk assessment can never be a replacement for a rigorous assessment of project-specific impacts related to the carrying out of a particular activity in a particular location.

The future of endangered species is at stake. Bringing bunkering activities within the environmental regulatory framework is urgently necessary. DM

[Lisbeth]

Deadly avian flu hits endangered penguin colony on Cape Peninsula


African penguins at Boulders in Simon’s Town have been hit by avian flu. (Photo: Pixabay)

By Don Pinnock | 20 Sep 2022

The avian flu outbreak that killed thousands of cormorants on the Cape West Coast and devastated chicken farms has spread to the penguin colony in Simon’s Town.
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The public has been advised not to approach, touch or handle seabirds around Simon’s Town to prevent the spread of the highly infectious H5N1 avian flu virus among African penguins at Boulders Beach. More than 10 penguins there have died in a colony that is already declining from other causes.

“Avian influenza is a highly contagious viral disease, almost always fatal,” said Dr David Roberts, clinical veterinarian for avian coastal conservation foundation Sanccob, which has been assessing the colony.

“African penguins are endangered and, from a conservation point of view, it’s very scary.”

There are about 3,000 penguins in the Boulders Beach colony – 1,000 breeding pairs and the rest are youngsters.


Flocking increases the transmission of avian flu. (Photo: Kelvin Trautman / SANCOB)

Sick penguins look sick. They hunch up, seem depressed, their eyes can be crusty, they can stagger, twitch, fall over and have seizures. Roberts has been training SANParks rangers to spot the signs.

Bird flu spreads between both wild and domesticated birds. There’s no cure and no preventive treatment. Birds that fall ill have to be removed and euthanised.

Western Cape Minister of Environmental Affairs, Anton Bredell, said that while avian flu held almost no risk to humans, if transmitted from wild seabirds to poultry flocks, it could pose a great risk to the agricultural sector.

Low risk to humans

Although human-to-human transmission is infrequent, it has been passed from birds to humans in close contact with poultry or other birds. The World Health Organization, which has been struggling with zoonic (animal-to-human) transmission of Covid-19, has warned that a genetic mutation of H5N1 could increase the risk to humans.


African penguins. (Photo: Eduard Drost)

In 2017, Sanccob noted that avian flu was spreading southwards through Africa. In 2018 it was detected in swift terns and several other species. Then, in 2021, as South Africa staggered under the pandemic, it hit chicken farms, leading to import bans against the poultry industry, massive culls and a huge loss of income.

That year, it also appeared on Dyer Island, De Mond and the Berg River on the Cape coast, resulting in the deaths of more than 24,000 Cape cormorants and Cape gannets. At the peak of the outbreak, the death rate was 700 a day.

Cape cormorants feed in flocks, sometimes of thousands of birds. Their long lines or V-shaped flocks are a feature of the West Coast. Besides the flu epidemic, overfishing of their main food, pilchards and anchovies, has put a strain on the species, which is endemic to the area.

The cormorant population has dropped by 50% in the past 50 years. Before the epidemic, there were an estimated 57,000 breeding pairs in South Africa.

Transmission issues

“With only a few penguins affected at Boulders, the impact is minimal at present, but it could rise dramatically,” said Roberts.

“It’s transmitted through close contact, and penguins do get close and personal. Density plays a big role, as with Covid. The virus can survive in anything wet (but not seawater).

“If a sick bird has been sitting under a bush and another one goes there, transmission is possible. We worry about them all close together. They do interact and it can cause an outbreak.”

The cause of the H5N1 avian virus, as with Covid, is human food production and from the same part of the world, China. It most likely evolved in artificial poultry production systems and spread across the Far East, then Europe.


The circulation of H5N1 has a strong link to commercial farming, says Dr David Roberts, clinical veterinarian for avian coastal conservation foundation Sanccob. (Photo: Pixabay)

“The circulation of H5N1 has a strong link to commercial farming,” said Roberts. “Now it’s spilled over into wild birds. We have large numbers of birds dying, including endangered species that are affected in much bigger numbers than we’ve ever had before.”

“Every few years a different variant emerges. We don’t know how these new diseases work or what they will do. They seem to be scarier and have potential long-term population events. And with African penguins, you have an endangered species facing so many other threats.”

According to Table Mountain National Park, the Boulders colony will not be closed to visitors, but the public is asked to stay on the designated boardwalks and report any sick-looking or dead birds to park management on 021 786 2329/021 780 9100, Sanccob on 021 557 6155 or the penguin rangers on 064 844 9075. DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

NGOs applaud the principle of partial fishing closures, but African Penguins urgently need more

28 September 2022

We commend the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment on recently announcing the partial closure of fishing around some African Penguin breeding colonies. This announcement explicitly acknowledges the importance of island closures in enhancing successful African Penguin breeding efforts. It is principally based on the recommendations that were made almost a year ago jointly by state fisheries and conservation scientists.

Had these closures been announced six months earlier, they would likely have had a more positive effect on the penguin breeding efforts of 2022. The timing of the newly announced closures comes after the small pelagic industry has already caught most of its quota and, therefore, will be too late to have the intended effect.

The delay in decision-making comes after a highly contested and protracted engagement between representatives of the small pelagic fishing industry and conservation NGOs over the future of African Penguins. Significantly, while these discussions were ongoing, there were no special protections in place for penguins and their numbers continued to decline.

The fishing industry has placed much emphasis on the negative social and economic impacts previous experimental closures have had and strongly argued that further closures would have a major impact on their workforce. While the conservation NGOs have repeatedly expressed their willingness to consider and develop ways of mitigating such claims of social and economic impacts, the fishing industry refused to share the actual social or economic impact data that could objectively be interrogated and potentially mitigated.

In the meantime, the small pelagic fishing industry has continued to fish, and by the time the formal interim closures were announced, the closures no longer served the purpose for which they were intended, namely to reduce penguin/industry competition for fish. More worrying is that the interim closure is only until 14 January 2023, after which the industrial fishing season for anchovy and the already depleted sardine stock will start again.

Both the small pelagic fishery and the African Penguin are highly dependent on these resources, but the penguins are at a distinct disadvantage as they can only forage close to their colonies when breeding. Failing to meet the high energy requirements of rearing chicks results in poor chick condition, chick deaths, the abandonment of the chicks and a failed breeding attempt. In the worst-case scenario, this could lead to the starvation of adult penguins and ultimately death.

The recent announcement includes reference to the establishment of an “Independent International Science Panel” to provide longer-term guidance to the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, on how to balance the future of the African Penguin with the commercial, subsistence and social demands of the fishing industry and the people who are dependent on it. A call for nominations to this panel has only just been advertised, and it is unlikely that this process will be completed by the time the interim closure lapses.

We are deeply concerned that, with all these delays, another breeding season will come and go without any precautionary protections given to the penguins. Given the perilous and rapid decline of Africa’s only penguin species, we cannot afford another squandered year.

Bearing in mind that a clear decision on future measures will only follow after the independent Science Panel has made its recommendations, we believe that the following steps be taken urgently:

1. A highly respected, knowledgeable and balanced panel needs to be constituted as rapidly as possible to examine the available facts that can underpin a strong decision, including taking into account the argument for invoking the precautionary principle.

2. A totally transparent process must be run in order to secure the full buy-in of both the NGOs and the fishing industry including the appointment of panel members, their credentials, final agreed upon terms of reference, and the time frame of review.

3. A decision to ensure that the period between the intended lifting of the interim closure and when the panel recommendations are enacted is covered. This must be done in a way that takes into account the interests of both African Penguins and the most vulnerable people associated with the fishing industry.

4. An ecosystem approach to fisheries must be prioritised across all fisheries so that all species and their respective interactions are considered in decision making, as well as the interests of all of those dependent on the ocean as a source of their livelihoods and wellbeing.

Finally, it is important to note that the annual African Penguin breeding population is a good indicator of the amount of prey available (sardine and anchovy) in the Southern Benguela Marine Ecosystem and closely follows the abundance of the sardine resource. The penguins have sounded the alarm, and the depleted status of their shared sardine resource should be of major concern also to the small pelagic industry. If this situation is not urgently addressed, it could result in a long-term collapse of the small pelagic fishery in South Africa. This tough lesson has been learnt in Namibia, where the fishery has had to remain closed since 2018.


African Penguins. Photo credit: Lauren Waller

More on the decline of penguin and sardine populations:

• The African Penguin, which is endemic species to our coastline, has declined drastically from over a million breeding pairs estimated in the early 1900s in South Africa to around 10,000 breeding pairs. This means that since the 1900s, we have lost 99% of the population.

• Although the IUCN first classified the African Penguin as “Endangered” in 2010, the population has continued to decline at an alarming rate of between 5-10% per annum.

• Given the current population trends and failing urgent precautionary action, colonies on the West Coast and in Algoa Bay, including four of the last remaining seven large colonies, are likely to be lost in their entirety within the next 10 to 20 years.

• Reported sardine catches have shrunk from over 400 000 tonnes in 2004 to a record low of 2 100 tonnes in 2019, representing a >99% reduction in annual catch.

• Historically, the small pelagic fishery regularly caught its entire annual sardine allocation but has struggled to achieve this since 2017, despite the substantial reductions in quotas.

• The recent inability of the fishing industry to find and catch its entire sardine quotas underscores the poor state of the sardine resource and concomitant socio-economic challenges this poses for the small pelagic industry.

• This low level of the sardine resource also poses severe environmental challenges for all top predators, among them Bryde’s whales, seals, dolphins, yellowtail, snoek, hake, various shark species, Cape Gannets, Cape Cormorants and the African Penguin, all of which are dependent on sardines as a food source.

This is a joint statement from WWF South Africa, BirdLife South Africa, SANCCOB and the Endangered Wildlife Trust

Contact:
Yolan Friedmann
The Endangered Wildlife Trust Chief Executive Officer
yolanf@ewt.org.za

[Lisbeth]

OPINIONISTA

Astute ocean management is needed as African penguins hurtle towards functional extinction

By Lorien Pichegru, | 06 Oct 2022
Professor Lorien Pichegru is Director of the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at Nelson Mandela University.

We are doing everything we can to protect every penguin egg and every chick. Their population can recover over time, but only if substantial and immediate changes are made with regards to their environment.
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temporary closures to the sardine and anchovy fishing industry announced by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) around the feeding grounds of South Africa’s six African penguin colonies will achieve little to nothing to halt the 90% plummet of the penguin population.

The closures, from 1 September 2022 to 14 January 2023, come too late because the small pelagic fishing season is mostly over for the year, and so is the penguin breeding season.

This has dire implications as the African penguin is hurtling towards becoming functionally extinct in the wild, which happens when the population reaches such a low level that it cannot recover – and we are perilously close to this.

In collaboration with leading conservation organisations such as the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), WWF, Sanccob and BirdLife South Africa, marine scientists have been urging the minister over several years to close the feeding grounds of South Africa’s six colonies (West Coast, South Coast and Algoa Bay) to the sardine or anchovy fishing industry for as long as necessary while the numbers are plummeting.

As emphasised by the four organisations in a joint statement on 28 September, during the breeding season (mostly between March and August), African penguins can only forage close to their colonies – within 20km to 40km.

“Failing to meet the high energy requirements of rearing chicks results in poor chick condition, chick deaths, the abandonment of the chicks and a failed breeding attempt. In the worst-case scenario, this could lead to the starvation of adult penguins and ultimately death,” they said.

This is occurring at a devastating rate. Until recently, the endemic African penguin colony on St Croix Island in Algoa Bay was the largest in the world, with 8,500 pairs out of a total of 12,000 pairs in Algoa Bay, including Bird Island and some of the smaller islands. This amounted to 50% of the world’s African penguins. Over the past six years the St Croix population has plummeted to 1,200 pairs.

The fragile penguin populations depend on sardines and anchovies for their diet. Competition for the fish stocks is high here, with sardine and anchovy fisheries in Algoa Bay targeting the waters around St Croix since it is the closest source from Port Elizabeth harbour.

The statement from the DFFE reads: “The closures will be temporary to allow for an international scientific panel to be set up to review all related science output over recent years. The review will advise the Department on the value of fishing limitations for penguins’ success, as well as the impacts such limitations will have on the fishing industry.”

The science is, however, well established and internationally peer-reviewed research on this has been widely available for more than a decade. No-take zones definitely contribute to improving feeding conditions for penguin populations. I have been researching African penguins for almost two decades, and am part of a senior scientific team researching the causes of this rapid, severe decline and how to address it.

In 2010 already my co-authors and I published an article in Biology Letters titled “Marine no-take zone rapidly benefits endangered penguins”. Other scientists have repeatedly published about the benefits of closures to penguins.

Heed the research

The fisheries industry routinely disputes the scientists’ statistics, but to date they have not published their statistics on how closures around penguin colonies affect their income. None of their statements has ever been peer-reviewed by the scientific community, against good scientific practice.

Minister Barbara Creecy is well aware that the fishing, scientific and conservation sectors have been trying to reach an agreement for 15 years, without success. The African penguin crisis calls for the minister to heed the existing, internationally recognised scientific research. Her call for an international scientific panel will simply cause further delay and we do not have such time.

In 2021, Cabinet proposed closures around the six major African penguin colonies to help the populations revive, based on best science, but it was refused by the fishing industries. This led to a second proposal by the Consultative Advisory Forum which reduced the size of the closures to areas no longer meaningful for the penguin population. This proposal was refused by both the conservation and fishing sectors.

As a result, no fishing closures at all were in place in 2022, although numbers of breeding African penguins were at their lowest levels yet recorded. Perhaps yet another international panel may help, however I urge the minister to revert to her initial proposal. Meaningful interventions right now are crucial for their survival.

We are doing everything we can to protect every penguin egg and every chick. Penguins can lay two eggs twice a year and their population can recover over time, but only if substantial and immediate changes are made with regards to their environment, including immediately banning sardine and anchovy fishing in their feeding grounds and reducing fuel-bunkering activities.

Ship-to-ship bunkering operations started in Algoa Bay in 2016, which caused four oil spills that affected the penguins, the last one in early May 2022. In addition, marine traffic noise seems to negatively impact penguins. Noise in Algoa Bay has doubled since the initiation of bunkering and the St Croix populations plummeted further.

On a positive note, earlier this year the South African Maritime Safety Authority published the first bunkering code to date, aiming to improve protocols for operators, which we applaud.

What the African penguin and many other marine living resource examples indicate is the urgent need for broader ocean management, which will be addressed at the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association’s (Wiomsa) Scientific Symposium in Nelson Mandela Bay from 10 to 15 October 2022.

This international symposium will help to guide international policies and improve management of our oceans, with a specific focus on the Western Indian Ocean, which extends from South Africa all the way up the east coast of Africa.

Together with Wiomsa and the Sustainable Seas Trust, in my role as director of the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at Nelson Mandela University, I am helping to organise this very large conference of 800 delegates from a wide range of countries, including South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles, Sweden, France, Germany and Portugal

There are very few international conferences of this size on our doorstep and it is an invaluable opportunity to share knowledge and experience from our countries and universities. Marine and maritime research is one of Nelson Mandela University’s strategic focus areas and the special sessions of the symposium will take place at our Ocean Sciences Campus on Friday, 14 October. One of our transdisciplinary programmes on which we’ll be presenting is Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), in which social, legal, economic and ecological research come together to contribute to sustainable ocean management.

South Africa’s MSP Act was gazetted in 2021. The country’s first MSP is for Algoa Bay and will be ready before the end of 2022, put together by a transdisciplinary team at the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research (CMR).

Essentially, it’s a layered map that can accommodate the many role players in the marine environment, including commercial and small-scale fisheries, shipping, tourism, marine protected areas, wildlife, ecosystem services, the navy and industry. MSP allocates the different sectors to zones with the aim of achieving ecological, economical and societal sustainability objectives.

The CMR team works closely with the government while the national MSP process is happening for the four marine areas along South Africa’s coastline: western, southern, eastern and the Prince Edward Islands. Algoa Bay is in the southern marine area and its MSP is intended to inform the upscaling of the whole southern area.

MSP programmes are the crucial background for a meaningful marine protected area network in South Africa, which has to increase from the current 5% of our exclusive economic zone, to 30% by 2030 to align with international standards. This is per the recommendations of the Convention on Biological Diversity at COP15 in 2020, to which 95 nations agreed, including South Africa. Such a network would also help to limit the impacts of climate change.

It’s an essential way forward for the sustainable use of our marine environment where economic gain or development has to be done without compromising the environment.

This is non-negotiable because the ecosystem services the oceans deliver are essential for our survival. DM

[Lisbeth]

Jogger finds mutilated penguins on Simon’s Town’s Seaforth Beach after dog attack


The dogs that attacked and killed the Seaforth Beach, Cape Town, penguins were confiscated by the SPCA. (Photo: Cape of Good Hope SPCA)

By Don Pinnock | 01 Nov 2022

It was a horror scene — dead and dying penguins being savaged by two husky-type dogs intent on killing, with no owner in sight to restrain them.
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The jogger, not named for legal reasons, tried to stop the dogs and they ran off. He tried to follow them but lost their trail. When he went back to the beach to see what he could do for the penguins that were injured, he found the dogs were back once again attacking the birds.


The two dogs responsible for the attack. (Photo: Cape of Good Hope SPCA)

He chased them and followed, this time establishing where they lived. He then reported the matter to the City of Cape Town which called the SPCA.

Upon further investigation, the authorities found the beach covered in dog footprints and many dead and dying birds with bite marks. The dogs were impounded in terms of the City’s Animal Keeping by-law and the owner will be charged.

Capetalk reported that 19 penguins had been killed.

The attack follows mounting concern about African penguins. In August, marine scientist Lorien Pichegru appealed to the government to ban sardine and anchovy fishing close to the six penguin colonies (West Coast, False Bay and Algoa Bay) as their populations were plummeting.


African penguins. (Photo: Pixabay)

The penguins were found with bite marks. (Photo: Cape of Good Hope SPCA)


Damning evidence – footprints among the dead birds. (Photo: Cape of Good Hope SPCA)

Environment Minister Barbara Creecy’s department proposed this a year ago based on a combination of GPS tracking of the penguins’ foraging grounds collected over 10 years. The proposal was aimed at maximising protection for the penguins while minimising impacts on the fisheries.

However, this year all closures for the fishing industry were lifted because the industry objected to the proposal. As a result, there is now no protection whatsoever for the penguins.

Then, in September, it was discovered that the Boulders Beach penguin colony in Cape Town, consisting of about 1,000 breeding pairs, had been hit by the highly infectious H5N1 avian flu. At least 10 had died and the flu was spreading.

“Avian influenza is a highly contagious viral disease, almost always fatal,” said Dr David Roberts, clinical veterinarian for the avian coastal conservation foundation Sanccob, who assessed the colony at the time.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

“African penguins are endangered and, from a conservation point of view, it’s very scary.”

The number of African penguins is now at the lowest number yet recorded in South Africa. Until recently, the colony on St Croix Island in Algoa Bay was the largest in the world, with 8,500 pairs out of a total of 12,000 pairs in Algoa Bay, including Bird Island and some of the smaller islands.

This amounted to 50% of the world’s African penguins. Over the past six years, however, the St Croix population has plummeted by 85% — down to 1,200 pairs.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Dwindling African penguin colonies — what needs to happen to restore the balance”

Over the past few years, the penguin population in Algoa Bay has also been affected by four oil spills, beginning in 2016 — the last one in early May 2022 — caused by the recent set-up of ship-to-ship bunkering operations in the bay.

The Simon’s Town dog attack has now reduced the number of African penguins, an endangered species, even further.

Seaforth Beach is a prominent nesting site for about 150 penguins and is on the border of Boulders Beach — a world-famous African penguin breeding colony.

There are several signs at the beach and in the parking lot warning visitors that off-leash dogs are not allowed.

“The SPCA will ensure that justice is served for these penguins who suffered a traumatic death because of irresponsible dog owners,” said SPCA chief inspector Jaco Pieterse.

“We don’t believe that the dogs are to blame, but will hold their irresponsible owners accountable.” DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

Breeding success raises hopes for future of endangered African penguin

by Ryan Truscott on 15 November 2022


Moulting juveniles at the De Hoop Reserve: researchers are trying to encourage African penguins to establish a breeding colony here. Image courtesy Christina Hagen/BirdLife

• Two African penguin chicks have hatched at a nature reserve in South Africa where conservationists have been working for years to entice the endangered birds to breed.

• The colony was abandoned more than 10 years ago after a caracal killed a number of penguins.

• The recent hatching comes at a time when survival prospects for Africa’s only resident penguin species look grim, due mainly to declining food stocks.

• But encouraging new colonies at sites close to abundant food sources could help to bring the species back from the brink.

Two African penguin chicks have emerged from their nest beneath a boulder at a site in South Africa where conservationists have used lifelike decoy penguins and broadcast penguin calls to entice adult penguins to breed.

Christina Hagen, the Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation at BirdLife South Africa, who leads the project, was on one of her regular trips last month to monitor the site in De Hoop Nature Reserve, in South Africa’s Western Cape province, when she spotted them.

“I was watching the penguins out on the rocks and suddenly I could see this fluffy little shape near one of the adults,” she told Mongabay.

“When I looked more closely I realized it was a chick. As I watched, another joined them from underneath the rock where they were nesting.”......
Click on the title to read the whole article.

[Lisbeth]

Will shipping noise nudge Africa’s only penguin toward extinction?

by Leonie Joubert on 21 November 2022

• The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) is expected to go extinct in the wild in just over a decade, largely due to a lack of sardines, their main food.

• A colony in South Africa’s busy Algoa Bay is suffering a population crash that researchers say coincides with the introduction of ship-to-ship refueling services that have made the bay one of the noisiest in the world.

• They say theirs is the first study showing a correlation between underwater noise pollution and a seabird collapse.

• Current studies are investigating whether the ship noise is interfering with the penguins’ foraging behavior and their ability to find fish.

CAPE TOWN — Seabird ranger Eduard Drost was busy with a routine inspection in an African penguin colony off the South African coast in 2021 when he noticed a troubling number of sickly birds.

“Some were emaciated, especially the chicks,” he recalls. “Their chest and hip bones were sticking out. Their bellies were flat, not rounded.”...................

...............South Africa’s breeding colonies have crashed by 73% in the past three decades, dropping from about 42,500 breeding pairs in 1991 to just 10,400 in 2021...........

Click on the title to read all of this very interesting article

[Richprins]

These penguins seem to be in trouble...

[Lisbeth]

If it is not one thing it's another

[Lisbeth]

Fishing exclusion zones are the right solution to save our critically endangered African penguins

By Lorien Pichegru | 07 Dec 2022 - Professor Lorien Pichegru is Director of the Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at Nelson Mandela University.

Marine Protected Areas are known to benefit marine ecosystems and species, including African Penguins, but also often to fisheries operating around them, even pelagic fisheries like tuna. They are the right way to go.
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It is unfortunate that Prof Doug Butterworth, emeritus maths professor from the University of Cape Town, in his article “Pichegru on penguins — the wrong solutions for a very serious problem” (Daily Maverick 26 October 2022) insists on misrepresenting the issue around African penguin conservation in the media.

African penguins are dying and urgent solutions need to be put in place, not further research without clear interventions. Fishing exclusion zones, or Marine Protected Areas, are indeed the right solution.

Many of us scientists have researched the reasons behind the decline of the penguins for over 20 years. These are well known to biologists, colony managers, government institutions, penguin rehabilitation centres and the community who are working towards African penguin conservation.

We have also researched the impacts of some of the solutions that have been put in place over time to address the various threats they are facing. When not optimum, we improved them and researched again.

This marathon effort is to ensure that effective, science-based conservation measures are put in place to conserve this iconic species. This work has been continuously published and peer-reviewed by the international scientific community, validating its scientific merit.

It is well known to the local and international scientific community that the main cause of the African penguins’ decline since the early 2000s is a lack of their main prey, sardine and anchovy (see Crawford et al 2006 or Crawford et al 2022 for the latest review).

It is also evident that purse-seine fishing exclusion zones around key African penguin colonies are benefitting these endangered birds. There is certainly no lack of rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific articles demonstrating this (see for the latest example Sydeman et al. 2021, ICES J Mar Sci).

While Prof Butterworth consistently criticises our publications, he himself, nor any member of his team, have never published any evidence to substantiate his claims that fishing exclusions would not benefit penguins, or would be costly to the industry. The modelled estimates on which he bases his assumptions have been substantively criticised by the very International Stock Assessment Review Panel he mentions, due to inadequate methodology.

No real data have been used to prove costs to fisheries of exclusion zones. These do exist, but are withheld by the industry, despite repeated requests from NGOs and scientists to understand the real socioeconomic cost of closures.

Interestingly, publicly available reports from Oceana, the largest fishing company in Africa, with their catch including a substantial proportion of the small pelagic fish fishing quota, reveal that their revenues climbed consistently since 2008, i.e. the beginning of fishing exclusion experiments around Dassen and Robben islands on the West Coast. Only a portion of the sardine catches are canned for human consumption, while the entirety of the anchovy catches is turned into fish meal and oil.

It is worth noting that experimental closures have not reduced the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) awarded to the industry. However, in the meantime, the stock of sardines has reached historically low levels for the past few years. This situation is highly concerning, not only for the predators surviving on these stocks but also, of course, for the sustainability of our fishing industry itself.

Therefore, rather than spreading doubts about the reasons behind the decline of African penguins in our country, it would be a lot more constructive, and indeed urgent, to focus on the commitment of the government to identify additional Marine Protected Areas for South Africa. Indeed, within the context of Operation Phakisa, 5% of our marine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) was to be under protection by 2019, which was achieved, but another 5% was to be identified by 2020, which is yet to be done.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are known to benefit marine ecosystems and species, including African Penguins, but also often to fisheries operating around them, even pelagic fisheries like tuna (Medoff et al. 2022, Science).

A large analysis of 22,403 peer-reviewed scientific publications on the impact of MPAs globally confirms the benefits of fully protected MPAs to biodiversity and to surrounding fishery catch and income, as well as on carbon sequestration (see Jacquemont et al. 2022, One Earth). Benefits are equally recognised in South Africa (see Kirkman et al. 2021, African Journal of Marine Science).

All other identified conservation measures for African Penguins have been adopted. Artificial nests have been installed on many colonies to provide shelter from heat waves to incubating adults or to chicks from storms and floods. Large rescue operations of eggs and chicks led by Sanccob are ongoing, with releases of over 7,800 chicks over the past 20 years into the wild.

Control measures of predation on land by gulls and at sea by seals have been put in place where necessary. Even a new colony has been initiated in De Hoop by BirdLife South Africa to attract breeding birds within an existing Marine Protected Area. Fishing exclusions around their colonies to reduce competition with fisheries are indeed the last tool left unused.

A proposal from a conservation consortium of several NGOs, including BirdLife South Africa, EWT and WWF was put on the minister’s table in 2021 for clearly defined fishing exclusion zones around the six main breeding colonies of African penguins. This proposal was based on over a decade of scientific monitoring of their foraging behaviour and habitat, and used international best practices to identify marine Important Bird Areas (see Soanes et al. 2016, Biol. Conserv.).

These areas include 90% of the at-sea habitat of 90% of the South African population of endangered African penguins. Their protection would represent an additional 3,383 km² to be protected, ie making a total 5.7% of our EEZ in MPAs.

Meaningful small steps towards the 10% of MPAs in the EEZ as planned by Operation Phakisa would also benefit non-breeding penguins (see Carpenter-Kling et al. 2022, Scientific Reports), rescued chicks released by rehabilitation centres, and other seabirds.

It would be particularly urgent for the population in Algoa Bay, currently critically endangered. This population is under further pressure of accrued risks of oil spills due to ship-to-ship bunkering, as well as high levels of underwater noise pollution from maritime traffic in the bay. MPAs are a haven for species and ecosystems. The survival of penguins depends on them. DM