Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
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Richprins
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
Fishing Exclusion Zones are the right way to go for the fish themselves, never mind penguins! But a political decision...
Please check Needs Attention pre-booking: https://africawild-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=596
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Lisbeth
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
Penguins survived multiple crises – but can Africa’s doughty ‘climate refugees’ ride the latest storms?
The African penguin is found along the southern African coastline and nowhere else in the world. It is known for its black-and-white plumage, black spots on the chest, and the characteristic ‘bray' resembling the sound of a donkey. With such a small number of birds in the wild, the population may be functionally extinct by 2035. (Photo: Steve Benjamin)
By Tony Carnie | 20 Apr 2023
‘They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth (before the human industrial era) and then we came along and klapped them with guano mining, commercial fishing and now heat stress. We hope their resilience will [carry] them through, but that could depend on how warm the world gets.’ – Professor Guy Midgley, head of Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The African penguin – a remarkable sea bird that swims like a fish and waddles on land, but cannot fly – boasted a population of well over 20 million in its glory days.
Largely due to naturally rising sea levels over the last several thousand years, that number had crashed to around 2 million – 5 million survivors at the dawn of humanity’s great industrial era.
As recently as 1910, there were still nearly 1.4 million African penguins breeding and raising a raucous racket on Dassen Island, a tiny three square kilometre chunk of land off the west coast of South Africa.
Today, there are just over 10,000 breeding pairs of this endangered bird species left in the world, scattered across 28 sites along the coast of South Africa and Namibia.
That’s it. Barely enough birds to fill the seats at Newlands Cricket Ground or a small provincial soccer stadium.
The African penguin population has plummeted from over 1 million breeding pairs in the early 1900s to less than 10,400 pairs today. These two photographs of Dassen Island off the West Coast of South Africa in the early 1900s and 2014 are a stark reminder of the near total population collapse of African penguins. (Photo: Cherry Kearton and Christina Hagen, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
Dassen Island off the West Coast of South Africa. (Photo: Cherry Kearton and Christina Hagen, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
Halifax Island is a small rocky island off the Namibian coast. (Photo: Eberlanz Museum and Jessica Kemper, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
Halifax Island. When the first guano (penguin poop) miners arrived at Halifax, the guano levels were reported to be piled up to a depth of nearly 37 metres. (Photo: Eberlanz Museum and Jessica Kemper, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
The main reason for this dramatic historical decline is that African penguins have run out of suitable nesting and breeding spaces, according to a new study by climate and zoology researchers at Stellenbosch University.
The Stellenbosch study, based on an analysis of sea levels off the Southern African coastline over the past 22,000 years, suggests that there has been a tenfold reduction in suitable nesting habitat for penguins over this period, sending their population numbers into steep decline.
Unlike species that were able to retreat to higher land as sea levels rose naturally, the breeding grounds of penguins were largely stranded on small islands (spaces where eggs and chicks were safe from land-based predators).
As more and more islands were inundated by rising sea waters, penguins had to resort to “island-hopping” in their search for alternative areas to breed in safety.
At the same time, the new breeding grounds had to be located in areas of relatively cold sea water because penguins feed mainly on sardines and anchovies, which are restricted to areas where the sea surface temperatures are between 12 and 24°C.
Dr Heath Beckett, a postdoctoral fellow at Stellenbosch and first author of the study, explained that it was this combination of very specialised needs (suitable breeding sites on predator-free islands and their dependence on cold-water fish) that decimated the population of these ancient “climate refugees” over time.
They could not flee northwards towards the warmer waters of the equator.
Beckett believes that by providing new insights into the historic decline of these birds, the latest study should help to guide current extinction-risk assessments – especially at a time when this endangered species faces a new range of threats from the human-induced climate crisis and other modern pressures such as competition for fish food or underwater noise from ships and seismic blasting.
Taking into account rising sea levels over the past several thousand years, Stellenbosch University researchers identified 220 islands which would have provided suitable nesting conditions for penguins – but most have now disappeared due to the historic rise in sea levels. (Infographic: Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies)
Professor Guy Midgley, head of Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies, notes that this is the last surviving penguin species in Africa, with 97% of the South African population now supported by only seven breeding colonies.
“This bird is a total survivor, and, given half a chance, they will hang on. Island-hopping saved it in the past … they know how to do this,” he said.
But, he noted, current extinction risk assessments had not taken account of the fact that penguins had already experienced a major historic collapse.
“Now we are putting them at further risk when they are already at the limits of existence,” Midgley warned.
“They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth (before the human industrial era) and then we came along and klapped them with guano mining, commercial fishing, and now, heat stress. We hope their resilience will take them through … but that could depend on how warm the world gets.”
https://youtu.be/w6RsAj32brE
With several new threats – rising sea temperatures, competition from the commercial fishing industry and humanity in general for the same food source – he fears that African penguins (and several other forms of marine life) “may not stand a chance”.
On a more optimistic note, Midgley suggests that attempts to establish new land-based colonies, such as De Hoop Nature Reserve, could provide some relief, but that such relocation projects could only bear fruit if the birds were protected from predators and guaranteed “sufficient access to marine food resources”.
In a separate research study published last year, Nelson Mandela University scientist, Dr Tegan Carpenter-Kling, highlighted a further, unique vulnerability for penguins – a phenomenon known as the annual “catastrophic moult”.
Carpenter-Kling and her colleagues caution that current conservation plans for African penguins focus mainly on reducing competition with purse-seine fisheries, during the breeding season.
“However, penguins also undergo an annual catastrophic moult when they are unable to feed for several weeks. Before moulting, they must accumulate sufficient energy stores to survive this critical life-history stage.
“For penguins, the energy demands of this period are particularly intense as, unlike other seabirds which stagger their moult, penguins replace their entire plumage in two to five weeks, in a so-called catastrophic moult.”
While moulting, penguins are land-bound and entirely dependent on fat reserves, resulting in a 40%-50% loss in body mass over the moult period.
She noted that penguins starved to death if they did not have sufficient fat reserves to complete the moult and return to sea. Therefore, it was critical for the birds to have sufficient access to fish throughout the year – not just in the breeding season. DM/OBP
The African penguin is found along the southern African coastline and nowhere else in the world. It is known for its black-and-white plumage, black spots on the chest, and the characteristic ‘bray' resembling the sound of a donkey. With such a small number of birds in the wild, the population may be functionally extinct by 2035. (Photo: Steve Benjamin)
By Tony Carnie | 20 Apr 2023
‘They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth (before the human industrial era) and then we came along and klapped them with guano mining, commercial fishing and now heat stress. We hope their resilience will [carry] them through, but that could depend on how warm the world gets.’ – Professor Guy Midgley, head of Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The African penguin – a remarkable sea bird that swims like a fish and waddles on land, but cannot fly – boasted a population of well over 20 million in its glory days.
Largely due to naturally rising sea levels over the last several thousand years, that number had crashed to around 2 million – 5 million survivors at the dawn of humanity’s great industrial era.
As recently as 1910, there were still nearly 1.4 million African penguins breeding and raising a raucous racket on Dassen Island, a tiny three square kilometre chunk of land off the west coast of South Africa.
Today, there are just over 10,000 breeding pairs of this endangered bird species left in the world, scattered across 28 sites along the coast of South Africa and Namibia.
That’s it. Barely enough birds to fill the seats at Newlands Cricket Ground or a small provincial soccer stadium.
The African penguin population has plummeted from over 1 million breeding pairs in the early 1900s to less than 10,400 pairs today. These two photographs of Dassen Island off the West Coast of South Africa in the early 1900s and 2014 are a stark reminder of the near total population collapse of African penguins. (Photo: Cherry Kearton and Christina Hagen, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
Dassen Island off the West Coast of South Africa. (Photo: Cherry Kearton and Christina Hagen, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
Halifax Island is a small rocky island off the Namibian coast. (Photo: Eberlanz Museum and Jessica Kemper, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
Halifax Island. When the first guano (penguin poop) miners arrived at Halifax, the guano levels were reported to be piled up to a depth of nearly 37 metres. (Photo: Eberlanz Museum and Jessica Kemper, courtesy of the Two Oceans Aquarium, Cape Town, South Africa)
The main reason for this dramatic historical decline is that African penguins have run out of suitable nesting and breeding spaces, according to a new study by climate and zoology researchers at Stellenbosch University.
The Stellenbosch study, based on an analysis of sea levels off the Southern African coastline over the past 22,000 years, suggests that there has been a tenfold reduction in suitable nesting habitat for penguins over this period, sending their population numbers into steep decline.
Unlike species that were able to retreat to higher land as sea levels rose naturally, the breeding grounds of penguins were largely stranded on small islands (spaces where eggs and chicks were safe from land-based predators).
As more and more islands were inundated by rising sea waters, penguins had to resort to “island-hopping” in their search for alternative areas to breed in safety.
At the same time, the new breeding grounds had to be located in areas of relatively cold sea water because penguins feed mainly on sardines and anchovies, which are restricted to areas where the sea surface temperatures are between 12 and 24°C.
Dr Heath Beckett, a postdoctoral fellow at Stellenbosch and first author of the study, explained that it was this combination of very specialised needs (suitable breeding sites on predator-free islands and their dependence on cold-water fish) that decimated the population of these ancient “climate refugees” over time.
They could not flee northwards towards the warmer waters of the equator.
Beckett believes that by providing new insights into the historic decline of these birds, the latest study should help to guide current extinction-risk assessments – especially at a time when this endangered species faces a new range of threats from the human-induced climate crisis and other modern pressures such as competition for fish food or underwater noise from ships and seismic blasting.
Taking into account rising sea levels over the past several thousand years, Stellenbosch University researchers identified 220 islands which would have provided suitable nesting conditions for penguins – but most have now disappeared due to the historic rise in sea levels. (Infographic: Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies)
Professor Guy Midgley, head of Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies, notes that this is the last surviving penguin species in Africa, with 97% of the South African population now supported by only seven breeding colonies.
“This bird is a total survivor, and, given half a chance, they will hang on. Island-hopping saved it in the past … they know how to do this,” he said.
But, he noted, current extinction risk assessments had not taken account of the fact that penguins had already experienced a major historic collapse.
“Now we are putting them at further risk when they are already at the limits of existence,” Midgley warned.
“They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth (before the human industrial era) and then we came along and klapped them with guano mining, commercial fishing, and now, heat stress. We hope their resilience will take them through … but that could depend on how warm the world gets.”
https://youtu.be/w6RsAj32brE
With several new threats – rising sea temperatures, competition from the commercial fishing industry and humanity in general for the same food source – he fears that African penguins (and several other forms of marine life) “may not stand a chance”.
On a more optimistic note, Midgley suggests that attempts to establish new land-based colonies, such as De Hoop Nature Reserve, could provide some relief, but that such relocation projects could only bear fruit if the birds were protected from predators and guaranteed “sufficient access to marine food resources”.
In a separate research study published last year, Nelson Mandela University scientist, Dr Tegan Carpenter-Kling, highlighted a further, unique vulnerability for penguins – a phenomenon known as the annual “catastrophic moult”.
Carpenter-Kling and her colleagues caution that current conservation plans for African penguins focus mainly on reducing competition with purse-seine fisheries, during the breeding season.
“However, penguins also undergo an annual catastrophic moult when they are unable to feed for several weeks. Before moulting, they must accumulate sufficient energy stores to survive this critical life-history stage.
“For penguins, the energy demands of this period are particularly intense as, unlike other seabirds which stagger their moult, penguins replace their entire plumage in two to five weeks, in a so-called catastrophic moult.”
While moulting, penguins are land-bound and entirely dependent on fat reserves, resulting in a 40%-50% loss in body mass over the moult period.
She noted that penguins starved to death if they did not have sufficient fat reserves to complete the moult and return to sea. Therefore, it was critical for the birds to have sufficient access to fish throughout the year – not just in the breeding season. DM/OBP
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Lisbeth
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
Creecy limits fishing around key African penguin colonies in ‘deal’ for people and birds
African penguins preen at Boulders Beach in Simon's Town on 14 January 2020. The African penguin is listed as critically endangered. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)
By Julia Evans | 04 Aug 2023
Environment Minister Creecy has released her much-anticipated decision that has had the conservation and pelagic fishing sectors at odds for years: deciding to limit fishing around key African penguin colonies in an attempt to help stop the decline of the species which is set to be extinct in just more than a decade.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
‘This is what my entire process for the last two years has aimed to do, to get the best deal that I can get under the current situation for people and for penguins,” said Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Barbara Creecy during a virtual briefing in which she announced her decision on fishing closures around key African penguin colonies based on the much-anticipated expert review panel report.
Creecy said she had decided to implement fishing limitations in the waters around penguin colonies for a minimum of 10 years, with a review after six years of implementation and data collection, in an effort to stop the rapid decline of this endangered species.
There were more than one million breeding pairs of the African penguin 100 years ago. Now there are fewer than 10,000.
The iconic species is endemic to South Africa and Namibia, and if the situation is not addressed, scientists predict that with current rates of population decline (about 8% per annum since 2005), they could be functionally extinct by 2035.
What is causing this rapid decline is hard to pinpoint – conservation groups, including the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) and BirdLife SA, believe a significant threat to colonies is prey availability, which is likely influenced by a combination of environmental variation and resource competition by the purse-seine fishing industry.
This was based on the groundbreaking, internationally recognised island closure experiment, which ran from 2008 to 2019 to see whether prohibiting pelagic fishing in a 20km radius of penguin colonies would have a positive effect on penguin populations.
The Island Closure Experiment prohibited purse-seine fishing around two pairs of penguin breeding islands: Dassen and Robben islands on the West Coast and St Croix and Bird islands in the Eastern Cape for over a decade. (Credit: Professor Andre Punt)
“This experiment sought to understand what, if any, benefits are derived from limiting fishing adjacent to penguin colonies. Competition for food is thought to be one among a set of pressures that are contributing to the decline of the African penguin population,” said Creecy.
The problem was that scientists interpreted the results of the experiment differently, because they used different models.
Dr Richard Sherley’s interpretation of the results found that “fishing closures improved chick survival and condition, after controlling for changing prey availability”, which the conservation organisations supported.
At the time, the South African Pelagic Fishing Industry Association (Sapfia) agreed that the current rate of species decline was a serious concern, but did not think that prey availability caused by consumer fishing was the biggest threat to the birds.
Their position was based on UCT Professor Doug Butterworth’s assessment of the experiment, which found that closing fishing around colonies had no significant effect on halting the decline in penguin numbers.
Butterworth was contracted by the fisheries branch of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment to do this research. He is with the Marine Resource Assessment and Management Group at UCT.
The assessments might say similar things, but Butterworth’s shows that closing fishing around the islands will, at best, increase the penguins’ annual growth rate only by about ½%, while Sherley’s assessment showed that it exceeds 1%.
“Both parties, in the middle of last year, said to me, if you appoint an international panel of experts, and that international panel of experts that considers the island closure experiment… we will accept the outcome,” Creecy said during the briefing.
And so, in December 2022, the minister appointed an expert review panel, under Section 3A of the National Environmental Management Act, to assess the science related to managing the interactions between the small pelagic (anchovy and sardines) fishery and the conservation of African penguins.
“The independent panel report that was commissioned was a necessary step because of all the conflict among South African scientists and industry,” Professor Mandy Lombard, the South African Research Chair in Marine Spatial Planning at Nelson Mandela University, told Daily Maverick.
“Given unknown future climates and threats to both penguins and human livelihoods, the best actions will always be to take the precautionary approach.”
African penguins in a tank at Sunshine Aquarium in Tokyo, Japan, on 10 December 2019. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Kimimasa Mayama)
Expert panel’s review
“Today marks the end of the complex and lengthy process of stakeholder consultations in the quest to find science-based measures to protect the endangered African penguin from extinction,” said Creecy on Friday.
The panellists – who came from around the world and have several decades’ experience in science-to-policy matters in marine ecosystems, with a combined science publication list of several hundreds – analysed the impacts of fishing closures on the response variables monitored using generalised linear mixed-effects models.
They then converted the changes in the monitored reproductive parameters into changes in population growth rate.
What they found is that the results of the Island Closure Experiment for Dassen and Robben islands indicate that fishing closures around the breeding colonies are likely to have a positive impact on population growth rates.
“However, the impacts will be small – we estimated somewhere between 0.7% and 1.5% population growth rate,” said Professor Andre Punt from the University of Washington, who chaired the panel.
“I will remind folks that we were talking about an 8% decline [per annum]. So, we emphasise 0.5% to 1.5% growth rate is actually small relative to the reductions at those colonies.”
Creecy’s decision
Based on the panel’s report, Creecy decided to implement fishing limitations in the waters around penguin colonies on Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point, Dyer Island, St Croix Island and Bird Island for a minimum of 10 years, with a review after six years of implementation and data collection.
As it stands, some areas around the major penguin colonies are already closed to commercial fishing for anchovy and sardine.
This is an interim measure that was put in place in September 2022 while the panel was working, and Creecy explained that the transition to implementing fishing limitations will continue with the current interim closures, while both the fishing industry and the conservation sector study the panel’s report.
“If there is agreement on fishing limitations over the next few weeks or months across these sectors, these will be implemented as they are agreed upon,” said Creecy, adding that there is some agreement on some colonies but there’s still negotiations going on around two or three of these colonies, and is giving the opportunity to two sectors to find a compromise by the end of the year.
“If no alternate fishing limitation proposals are concluded by the start of the 2024 Small Pelagic Fishing Season (15 January 2024) the current interim fishing limitations will continue until the end of the 2033 fishing season, with a review in 2030 after six years of implementation from the start of the 2024 fishing season.”
Conservation and fishing sectors response
BirdLife South Africa, which is part of the conservation sector group that took part in the deliberations of the Expert Review Panel on African Penguin Conservation as it relates to the impact of purse-seine fisheries restrictions, said it welcomed the release of the report and the minister’s decision around the timeframes for long-term closures.
“Provided that the ultimate closure extents that are implemented are aligned to the foraging habitat needs of these birds, this timeframe will afford African penguins a better chance of population recovery, especially given that [they] only start breeding at an age of three to six years,” it said.
However, the conservation sector group once again raised concerns around the interim closures and their adequacy in protecting the six remaining large African penguin colonies.
African penguins at Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town on 14 January 2020. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)
“These concerns are especially relevant for colonies at Dassen Island, Robben Island and Stony Point, with the latter two colonies having the smallest proportions of penguin habitat protected by these restrictions,” they stated.
Mike Copeland, chairperson of Sapfia, which is part of the fisheries sector group, told Daily Maverick on Friday that it welcomed the minister’s decision and the public release export report, which it had not had a chance to read yet.
“We look forward to reading the report and also, in the light of the minister’s decision, to continuing discussions with our conservation colleagues to find a reasonable balance between the impact on the penguin population and the socioeconomic impact on fishing communities and the South African economy,” said Copeland.
Difficult balancing act
“The reason that it has taken us two years of negotiation to reach this point has been that we wanted to try and get the best possible outcome for both sectors,” said Creecy on Friday.
“We recognise that penguin tourism generates jobs… generates revenue, and is very important revenue that cross-subsidises conservation in other national parks.
“But we also recognise that the fishing industry generates revenue. And we recognise that the fishing industry supports both small and large fishers whose livelihoods are very important to the country, and of course, to the individual families and communities.”
Stopping fishing alone won’t save the penguins
While the expert panel concluded that there is likely to be a benefit to penguin conservation of closures of forage fishing around colonies, Punt emphasised that this “is only one part of a larger package of conservation measures. And in particular, simply implementing closures alone is unlikely to reverse the declines.”
The department agreed, highlighting that fishing limitations around breeding colonies only addresses one aspect in combating the high rate of penguin decline and is no miracle intervention.
“It must be seen as contributing its share to the other interventions in the penguin management plan, such as better managing land predators, habitat conservation and mitigating disease and pollution,” the department said.
Other measures in that the department has undertaken with conservation partners for the penguin management plan include control of predation (domestic animals, feral cats, kelp gulls and seals), rehabilitating oiled birds, population reinforcement (removing abandoned eggs, chicks and emaciated adults for rehabilitation and return), piloting artificial nests, habitat restoration and implementing biosecurity measures to limit the spread of avian flu.
“I believe that the report and my policy decisions here start a new cycle of refinement and assessment for both fisheries and penguin management. It is a material step in implementing our ambition on an ecosystems approach to sustainable ocean management and dynamic marine spatial planning,” concluded Creecy. DM
African penguins preen at Boulders Beach in Simon's Town on 14 January 2020. The African penguin is listed as critically endangered. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)
By Julia Evans | 04 Aug 2023
Environment Minister Creecy has released her much-anticipated decision that has had the conservation and pelagic fishing sectors at odds for years: deciding to limit fishing around key African penguin colonies in an attempt to help stop the decline of the species which is set to be extinct in just more than a decade.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
‘This is what my entire process for the last two years has aimed to do, to get the best deal that I can get under the current situation for people and for penguins,” said Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Barbara Creecy during a virtual briefing in which she announced her decision on fishing closures around key African penguin colonies based on the much-anticipated expert review panel report.
Creecy said she had decided to implement fishing limitations in the waters around penguin colonies for a minimum of 10 years, with a review after six years of implementation and data collection, in an effort to stop the rapid decline of this endangered species.
There were more than one million breeding pairs of the African penguin 100 years ago. Now there are fewer than 10,000.
The iconic species is endemic to South Africa and Namibia, and if the situation is not addressed, scientists predict that with current rates of population decline (about 8% per annum since 2005), they could be functionally extinct by 2035.
What is causing this rapid decline is hard to pinpoint – conservation groups, including the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) and BirdLife SA, believe a significant threat to colonies is prey availability, which is likely influenced by a combination of environmental variation and resource competition by the purse-seine fishing industry.
This was based on the groundbreaking, internationally recognised island closure experiment, which ran from 2008 to 2019 to see whether prohibiting pelagic fishing in a 20km radius of penguin colonies would have a positive effect on penguin populations.
The Island Closure Experiment prohibited purse-seine fishing around two pairs of penguin breeding islands: Dassen and Robben islands on the West Coast and St Croix and Bird islands in the Eastern Cape for over a decade. (Credit: Professor Andre Punt)
“This experiment sought to understand what, if any, benefits are derived from limiting fishing adjacent to penguin colonies. Competition for food is thought to be one among a set of pressures that are contributing to the decline of the African penguin population,” said Creecy.
The problem was that scientists interpreted the results of the experiment differently, because they used different models.
Dr Richard Sherley’s interpretation of the results found that “fishing closures improved chick survival and condition, after controlling for changing prey availability”, which the conservation organisations supported.
At the time, the South African Pelagic Fishing Industry Association (Sapfia) agreed that the current rate of species decline was a serious concern, but did not think that prey availability caused by consumer fishing was the biggest threat to the birds.
Their position was based on UCT Professor Doug Butterworth’s assessment of the experiment, which found that closing fishing around colonies had no significant effect on halting the decline in penguin numbers.
Butterworth was contracted by the fisheries branch of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment to do this research. He is with the Marine Resource Assessment and Management Group at UCT.
The assessments might say similar things, but Butterworth’s shows that closing fishing around the islands will, at best, increase the penguins’ annual growth rate only by about ½%, while Sherley’s assessment showed that it exceeds 1%.
“Both parties, in the middle of last year, said to me, if you appoint an international panel of experts, and that international panel of experts that considers the island closure experiment… we will accept the outcome,” Creecy said during the briefing.
And so, in December 2022, the minister appointed an expert review panel, under Section 3A of the National Environmental Management Act, to assess the science related to managing the interactions between the small pelagic (anchovy and sardines) fishery and the conservation of African penguins.
“The independent panel report that was commissioned was a necessary step because of all the conflict among South African scientists and industry,” Professor Mandy Lombard, the South African Research Chair in Marine Spatial Planning at Nelson Mandela University, told Daily Maverick.
“Given unknown future climates and threats to both penguins and human livelihoods, the best actions will always be to take the precautionary approach.”
African penguins in a tank at Sunshine Aquarium in Tokyo, Japan, on 10 December 2019. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Kimimasa Mayama)
Expert panel’s review
“Today marks the end of the complex and lengthy process of stakeholder consultations in the quest to find science-based measures to protect the endangered African penguin from extinction,” said Creecy on Friday.
The panellists – who came from around the world and have several decades’ experience in science-to-policy matters in marine ecosystems, with a combined science publication list of several hundreds – analysed the impacts of fishing closures on the response variables monitored using generalised linear mixed-effects models.
They then converted the changes in the monitored reproductive parameters into changes in population growth rate.
What they found is that the results of the Island Closure Experiment for Dassen and Robben islands indicate that fishing closures around the breeding colonies are likely to have a positive impact on population growth rates.
“However, the impacts will be small – we estimated somewhere between 0.7% and 1.5% population growth rate,” said Professor Andre Punt from the University of Washington, who chaired the panel.
“I will remind folks that we were talking about an 8% decline [per annum]. So, we emphasise 0.5% to 1.5% growth rate is actually small relative to the reductions at those colonies.”
Creecy’s decision
Based on the panel’s report, Creecy decided to implement fishing limitations in the waters around penguin colonies on Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point, Dyer Island, St Croix Island and Bird Island for a minimum of 10 years, with a review after six years of implementation and data collection.
As it stands, some areas around the major penguin colonies are already closed to commercial fishing for anchovy and sardine.
This is an interim measure that was put in place in September 2022 while the panel was working, and Creecy explained that the transition to implementing fishing limitations will continue with the current interim closures, while both the fishing industry and the conservation sector study the panel’s report.
“If there is agreement on fishing limitations over the next few weeks or months across these sectors, these will be implemented as they are agreed upon,” said Creecy, adding that there is some agreement on some colonies but there’s still negotiations going on around two or three of these colonies, and is giving the opportunity to two sectors to find a compromise by the end of the year.
“If no alternate fishing limitation proposals are concluded by the start of the 2024 Small Pelagic Fishing Season (15 January 2024) the current interim fishing limitations will continue until the end of the 2033 fishing season, with a review in 2030 after six years of implementation from the start of the 2024 fishing season.”
Conservation and fishing sectors response
BirdLife South Africa, which is part of the conservation sector group that took part in the deliberations of the Expert Review Panel on African Penguin Conservation as it relates to the impact of purse-seine fisheries restrictions, said it welcomed the release of the report and the minister’s decision around the timeframes for long-term closures.
“Provided that the ultimate closure extents that are implemented are aligned to the foraging habitat needs of these birds, this timeframe will afford African penguins a better chance of population recovery, especially given that [they] only start breeding at an age of three to six years,” it said.
However, the conservation sector group once again raised concerns around the interim closures and their adequacy in protecting the six remaining large African penguin colonies.
African penguins at Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town on 14 January 2020. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)
“These concerns are especially relevant for colonies at Dassen Island, Robben Island and Stony Point, with the latter two colonies having the smallest proportions of penguin habitat protected by these restrictions,” they stated.
Mike Copeland, chairperson of Sapfia, which is part of the fisheries sector group, told Daily Maverick on Friday that it welcomed the minister’s decision and the public release export report, which it had not had a chance to read yet.
“We look forward to reading the report and also, in the light of the minister’s decision, to continuing discussions with our conservation colleagues to find a reasonable balance between the impact on the penguin population and the socioeconomic impact on fishing communities and the South African economy,” said Copeland.
Difficult balancing act
“The reason that it has taken us two years of negotiation to reach this point has been that we wanted to try and get the best possible outcome for both sectors,” said Creecy on Friday.
“We recognise that penguin tourism generates jobs… generates revenue, and is very important revenue that cross-subsidises conservation in other national parks.
“But we also recognise that the fishing industry generates revenue. And we recognise that the fishing industry supports both small and large fishers whose livelihoods are very important to the country, and of course, to the individual families and communities.”
Stopping fishing alone won’t save the penguins
While the expert panel concluded that there is likely to be a benefit to penguin conservation of closures of forage fishing around colonies, Punt emphasised that this “is only one part of a larger package of conservation measures. And in particular, simply implementing closures alone is unlikely to reverse the declines.”
The department agreed, highlighting that fishing limitations around breeding colonies only addresses one aspect in combating the high rate of penguin decline and is no miracle intervention.
“It must be seen as contributing its share to the other interventions in the penguin management plan, such as better managing land predators, habitat conservation and mitigating disease and pollution,” the department said.
Other measures in that the department has undertaken with conservation partners for the penguin management plan include control of predation (domestic animals, feral cats, kelp gulls and seals), rehabilitating oiled birds, population reinforcement (removing abandoned eggs, chicks and emaciated adults for rehabilitation and return), piloting artificial nests, habitat restoration and implementing biosecurity measures to limit the spread of avian flu.
“I believe that the report and my policy decisions here start a new cycle of refinement and assessment for both fisheries and penguin management. It is a material step in implementing our ambition on an ecosystems approach to sustainable ocean management and dynamic marine spatial planning,” concluded Creecy. DM
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Lisbeth
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
Penguin safety worries as navy ready Simon’s Town underwater demolition training exercise
A naval 'underwater explosive exercise' is set to take place near Seaforth in Simon's Town from 22 January 2024 until 11 February 2024. Locals and environmental groups believe it poses a threat to endangered and sensitive marine life since the activity will take place close to the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach. (Photo: Gallo Images)
By Kristin Engel | 21 Jan 2024
A planned ‘underwater explosive exercise’ by the South African Navy has raised concern among local residents and environmental activists. Scheduled to take place near Seaforth Beach from Monday, 22 January 2024, the exercise has sparked alarm due to its potential impact on the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A coastal warning was issued on the South African Navy website on 15 January 2024 indicating that the navy will be conducting the exercise between 22 January and 1 February near Seaforth in Simon’s Town, and all vessels were requested to keep clear.
This triggered an immediate outcry from residents as fears were raised over the potential effects on marine life, particularly the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach, which is close to the exercise area.
Residents have expressed dismay at the lack of transparency and communication regarding the nature and necessity of the exercise, as well as the potential harm to threatened marine wildlife.
The demolition range where the exercise will take place was gazetted for the navy’s use more than 60 years ago and it uses the range to train navy divers.
A major concern among residents is the potential impacts on the penguins — the African penguin is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on its Red Data list of threatened species.
Locals protest at Long Beach against the navy’s ‘underwater explosive exercise’ on 20 January 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)
The species, endemic to South Africa and Namibia, is marching towards extinction, with a population that is critically low. A century ago, the African penguin boasted more than a million breeding pairs, but the number has dwindled to fewer than 10,000 today. This current trajectory suggests it could become functionally extinct by 2035.
This means the population will be so diminished that it won’t be able to breed sufficiently to replenish and increase its numbers.
Stander said they have been conducting ongoing bioacoustics research with their partners to better understand how noise affects seabirds under and above water.
Underwater demolitions training exercise for divers
Commander Theo Mabina, acting senior staff officer of naval public relations, told Daily Maverick that the navy will undertake an “underwater demolitions training exercise for divers” to prepare and train them for some of their responsibilities.
This includes clearing harbour entrances, underwater canals, beach landings, and any other underwater demolition jobs that may arise.
Protesters against the SA Navy’s planned detonation of underwater explosives at Long Beach, Simon’s Town, on 20 January 2024. (Photo Gallo Images / ER Lombard)
Mabina said that “at all times, the South African Navy should maintain a capable force ready to respond to any hostile circumstance, which could include economic sabotage situations in which sea mines are put in the country’s major ports, necessitating the use of navy divers. As a result, training and force preparation are critical components of members’ competency and certification. This is what the organisation has been doing since its inception, as required by the Constitution and Defence Act.”
The training exercise would take place in a designated and charted “Shallow Water Demolitions Range Military Practice Area”, which is mainly used for such training and exercises.
“The range’s limit for underwater demolitions is 5kg, which has been in effect since its inception in the 1980s. This training will last only one day, between January 22 and February 1, 2024. As a norm, the SA Navy does and will always send navigational warnings on these and other related activities,” said Mabina.
Questions about whether an environmental impact assessment (EIA) had been done, and whether the potential harm of this activity on the nearby African penguin colony and other marine life had been considered, went unanswered in the navy’s response. As were questions about what safety measures were implemented to minimise the impact on marine life and the surrounding environment.
Outcry from locals and objections
Simon’s Town resident Jenny Cullinan questioned the environmental impact studies conducted by the navy, expressing concern that outdated practices fail to account for the changing environmental conditions and the increasing threats to marine life.
Cullinan lives just above the demarcated area and said “it’s a big sound that comes from it; huge explosive blows where even my windows rattle and my animals get pretty distressed by it. I would say it has a massive impact on the animals in the ocean; one knows that sound travels in a particular way underwater.
“The South African Navy has to comply with South African law, environmental laws too… from my point of view, we’re looking at a government entity that seems to override the law. They do their own thing,” she said.
Cullinan said the environment has changed drastically over the past 60 years with climate change, biodiversity loss, urbanisation, pollution and ocean changes.
“We can’t just carry on behaving as if the situation hasn’t changed. This behaviour needs to be adjusted… 60 years ago these demarcated areas were declared; what environmental studies were done then? And if they weren’t done, can we not ask for a review or for this to be done so that halting of this activity happens and an assessment is done?
In her objection to the activity, Dr Heidi-Jayne Hawkins, a Glencairn resident, a regular diver off Simon’s Town and researcher of plant physiology, functional ecology and ecosystem carbon, requested that the navy supply evidence of an EIA.
“I find this unacceptable because the area is near Boulders Beach with the endangered African penguin colony, and Seaforth Beach, a major recreational area on both land and sea for locals and tourists.”
Long-time resident Lisa Garson, who has persistently raised concerns about naval exercises, said her attempts to report the activities as environmental crimes were met with resistance, underscoring the perception that the navy operates with impunity.
Garson even tried to lay a charge with the South African Police Service in Simon’s Town and claims she was laughed out of the office because they said the crime has to actually be in progress or have taken place when reported.
“I’ve had a very frustrating time… recently, they’ve [the navy] put a notice on their website saying that they’re planning these explosions underground, and they’re detonations, not massive explosions where all the fish are going to be lying on the top of the sea. But the fact of the matter is that it’s very close to the Boulders penguin colony with a group of African penguins that are likely to be extinct by 2035. So, any disturbance to an area near them could have catastrophic effects,” she said.
In September 2021, 65 endangered African penguins died overnight at Boulders as a result of bee stings. Garson said this showed how sensitive and vulnerable this already endangered species was to changes in the environment: “We don’t know enough to just blindly continue doing a practice just because we’ve done it for 60 years.”
“The navy needs to see some protest action, because they operate with impunity… The bottom line is that until we know more, until we know how these birds are affected by any activity, shooting, blasting, or whatever it might be, it needs to be stopped,” said Garson.
Our oceans are under pressure on multiple fronts. Seismic blasting and oil drilling, ocean acidification from absorption of the increasing amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere, increasing temperatures and commercial fishing are just a small sample of the factors threatening aquatic life.
A protest against the navy’s planned detonation of underwater explosives was held at Long Beach, Simon’s Town, on 20 January 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / ER Lombard)
‘Ecocidal behaviour’
Isabelle Joubert from Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cape Town said that with coastal wildlife already vulnerable, they want transparency about these activities, including their use, necessity and environmental impact.
“Globally, militaries need to be held to far greater account for their ecocidal behaviour, whether as a result of their profligate use of fossil fuels, their indiscriminate decimation of conflict zones, or their devastation of ecosystems through weapons testing, most notably in the case of the nuclear weapons tests,” said Joubert.
XR Cape Town called for the blasting exercises to be stopped and participated in a sea and land-based protest on Saturday, 19 January at Long Beach in Simon’s Town, together with other paddlers, seafarers and residents.
Helen Lockhart, conservation and sustainability manager for the Two Oceans Aquarium, said that sound is the sensory cue that travels farthest in the ocean and is used by marine animals, ranging from tiny floating plankton to invertebrates and whales, to interpret and explore the marine environment and to interact within and among species.
“Penguins may be expected to be particularly affected by loud underwater sounds, due to their largely aquatic existence. A study in 2017 by Pichegru, Nyengera, McInnes and Pistorius on the behavioural response of breeding endangered African penguins to seismic surveys within 100km of their colony showed that penguins avoided the areas where they normally foraged for food and moved further away, which meant that they had to expend more energy to hunt and also remained from their nests and chicks for longer periods,” she said.
The birds reverted to normal behaviour when the operation ceased, although longer-term repercussions on hearing capacities cannot be precluded.
Lockhart said that “the rapid industrialisation of the oceans has increased levels of underwater anthropogenic noises globally – a growing concern for a wide range of taxa, now also including seabirds. African penguin numbers have decreased by 70% in the past 10 years, a strong motivation for precautionary management decisions and human activities.”
The Not On Our Watch Campaign, which was launched in 2023, aims to create a movement and raise awareness of the need for urgent action to reverse the decline of the African penguin population in the wild.
As the controversy unfolds, the battle for environmental protection in Simon’s Town intensifies. The fragile balance between military activities and the preservation of endangered species underscores the urgent need for open dialogue, updated environmental assessments, and a re-evaluation of practices that may threaten the delicate ecosystems of Simon’s Town. DM
A naval 'underwater explosive exercise' is set to take place near Seaforth in Simon's Town from 22 January 2024 until 11 February 2024. Locals and environmental groups believe it poses a threat to endangered and sensitive marine life since the activity will take place close to the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach. (Photo: Gallo Images)
By Kristin Engel | 21 Jan 2024
A planned ‘underwater explosive exercise’ by the South African Navy has raised concern among local residents and environmental activists. Scheduled to take place near Seaforth Beach from Monday, 22 January 2024, the exercise has sparked alarm due to its potential impact on the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A coastal warning was issued on the South African Navy website on 15 January 2024 indicating that the navy will be conducting the exercise between 22 January and 1 February near Seaforth in Simon’s Town, and all vessels were requested to keep clear.
This triggered an immediate outcry from residents as fears were raised over the potential effects on marine life, particularly the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach, which is close to the exercise area.
Residents have expressed dismay at the lack of transparency and communication regarding the nature and necessity of the exercise, as well as the potential harm to threatened marine wildlife.
The demolition range where the exercise will take place was gazetted for the navy’s use more than 60 years ago and it uses the range to train navy divers.
A major concern among residents is the potential impacts on the penguins — the African penguin is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on its Red Data list of threatened species.
Locals protest at Long Beach against the navy’s ‘underwater explosive exercise’ on 20 January 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)
The species, endemic to South Africa and Namibia, is marching towards extinction, with a population that is critically low. A century ago, the African penguin boasted more than a million breeding pairs, but the number has dwindled to fewer than 10,000 today. This current trajectory suggests it could become functionally extinct by 2035.
This means the population will be so diminished that it won’t be able to breed sufficiently to replenish and increase its numbers.
- We don’t know enough to just blindly continue doing a practice just because we’ve done it for 60 years.
Stander said they have been conducting ongoing bioacoustics research with their partners to better understand how noise affects seabirds under and above water.
Underwater demolitions training exercise for divers
Commander Theo Mabina, acting senior staff officer of naval public relations, told Daily Maverick that the navy will undertake an “underwater demolitions training exercise for divers” to prepare and train them for some of their responsibilities.
This includes clearing harbour entrances, underwater canals, beach landings, and any other underwater demolition jobs that may arise.
Protesters against the SA Navy’s planned detonation of underwater explosives at Long Beach, Simon’s Town, on 20 January 2024. (Photo Gallo Images / ER Lombard)
Mabina said that “at all times, the South African Navy should maintain a capable force ready to respond to any hostile circumstance, which could include economic sabotage situations in which sea mines are put in the country’s major ports, necessitating the use of navy divers. As a result, training and force preparation are critical components of members’ competency and certification. This is what the organisation has been doing since its inception, as required by the Constitution and Defence Act.”
The training exercise would take place in a designated and charted “Shallow Water Demolitions Range Military Practice Area”, which is mainly used for such training and exercises.
“The range’s limit for underwater demolitions is 5kg, which has been in effect since its inception in the 1980s. This training will last only one day, between January 22 and February 1, 2024. As a norm, the SA Navy does and will always send navigational warnings on these and other related activities,” said Mabina.
Questions about whether an environmental impact assessment (EIA) had been done, and whether the potential harm of this activity on the nearby African penguin colony and other marine life had been considered, went unanswered in the navy’s response. As were questions about what safety measures were implemented to minimise the impact on marine life and the surrounding environment.
Outcry from locals and objections
Simon’s Town resident Jenny Cullinan questioned the environmental impact studies conducted by the navy, expressing concern that outdated practices fail to account for the changing environmental conditions and the increasing threats to marine life.
Cullinan lives just above the demarcated area and said “it’s a big sound that comes from it; huge explosive blows where even my windows rattle and my animals get pretty distressed by it. I would say it has a massive impact on the animals in the ocean; one knows that sound travels in a particular way underwater.
“The South African Navy has to comply with South African law, environmental laws too… from my point of view, we’re looking at a government entity that seems to override the law. They do their own thing,” she said.
Cullinan said the environment has changed drastically over the past 60 years with climate change, biodiversity loss, urbanisation, pollution and ocean changes.
“We can’t just carry on behaving as if the situation hasn’t changed. This behaviour needs to be adjusted… 60 years ago these demarcated areas were declared; what environmental studies were done then? And if they weren’t done, can we not ask for a review or for this to be done so that halting of this activity happens and an assessment is done?
- It’s very close to… a group of African penguins that are likely to be extinct by 2035. So, any disturbance to an area near them could have catastrophic effects.
In her objection to the activity, Dr Heidi-Jayne Hawkins, a Glencairn resident, a regular diver off Simon’s Town and researcher of plant physiology, functional ecology and ecosystem carbon, requested that the navy supply evidence of an EIA.
“I find this unacceptable because the area is near Boulders Beach with the endangered African penguin colony, and Seaforth Beach, a major recreational area on both land and sea for locals and tourists.”
Long-time resident Lisa Garson, who has persistently raised concerns about naval exercises, said her attempts to report the activities as environmental crimes were met with resistance, underscoring the perception that the navy operates with impunity.
Garson even tried to lay a charge with the South African Police Service in Simon’s Town and claims she was laughed out of the office because they said the crime has to actually be in progress or have taken place when reported.
“I’ve had a very frustrating time… recently, they’ve [the navy] put a notice on their website saying that they’re planning these explosions underground, and they’re detonations, not massive explosions where all the fish are going to be lying on the top of the sea. But the fact of the matter is that it’s very close to the Boulders penguin colony with a group of African penguins that are likely to be extinct by 2035. So, any disturbance to an area near them could have catastrophic effects,” she said.
In September 2021, 65 endangered African penguins died overnight at Boulders as a result of bee stings. Garson said this showed how sensitive and vulnerable this already endangered species was to changes in the environment: “We don’t know enough to just blindly continue doing a practice just because we’ve done it for 60 years.”
“The navy needs to see some protest action, because they operate with impunity… The bottom line is that until we know more, until we know how these birds are affected by any activity, shooting, blasting, or whatever it might be, it needs to be stopped,” said Garson.
Our oceans are under pressure on multiple fronts. Seismic blasting and oil drilling, ocean acidification from absorption of the increasing amounts of CO2 in our atmosphere, increasing temperatures and commercial fishing are just a small sample of the factors threatening aquatic life.
A protest against the navy’s planned detonation of underwater explosives was held at Long Beach, Simon’s Town, on 20 January 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / ER Lombard)
‘Ecocidal behaviour’
Isabelle Joubert from Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cape Town said that with coastal wildlife already vulnerable, they want transparency about these activities, including their use, necessity and environmental impact.
“Globally, militaries need to be held to far greater account for their ecocidal behaviour, whether as a result of their profligate use of fossil fuels, their indiscriminate decimation of conflict zones, or their devastation of ecosystems through weapons testing, most notably in the case of the nuclear weapons tests,” said Joubert.
XR Cape Town called for the blasting exercises to be stopped and participated in a sea and land-based protest on Saturday, 19 January at Long Beach in Simon’s Town, together with other paddlers, seafarers and residents.
Helen Lockhart, conservation and sustainability manager for the Two Oceans Aquarium, said that sound is the sensory cue that travels farthest in the ocean and is used by marine animals, ranging from tiny floating plankton to invertebrates and whales, to interpret and explore the marine environment and to interact within and among species.
“Penguins may be expected to be particularly affected by loud underwater sounds, due to their largely aquatic existence. A study in 2017 by Pichegru, Nyengera, McInnes and Pistorius on the behavioural response of breeding endangered African penguins to seismic surveys within 100km of their colony showed that penguins avoided the areas where they normally foraged for food and moved further away, which meant that they had to expend more energy to hunt and also remained from their nests and chicks for longer periods,” she said.
The birds reverted to normal behaviour when the operation ceased, although longer-term repercussions on hearing capacities cannot be precluded.
Lockhart said that “the rapid industrialisation of the oceans has increased levels of underwater anthropogenic noises globally – a growing concern for a wide range of taxa, now also including seabirds. African penguin numbers have decreased by 70% in the past 10 years, a strong motivation for precautionary management decisions and human activities.”
The Not On Our Watch Campaign, which was launched in 2023, aims to create a movement and raise awareness of the need for urgent action to reverse the decline of the African penguin population in the wild.
As the controversy unfolds, the battle for environmental protection in Simon’s Town intensifies. The fragile balance between military activities and the preservation of endangered species underscores the urgent need for open dialogue, updated environmental assessments, and a re-evaluation of practices that may threaten the delicate ecosystems of Simon’s Town. DM
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
-
Lisbeth
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- Posts: 66910
- Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
They (the Government, the various ministries etc.) are blind to everything which are not their own "thing". Most likely the Navy does not know about the penguins at Boulder's Beach or they just don't care 
There is coastline enough elsewhere!
There is coastline enough elsewhere!"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
-
Lisbeth
- Site Admin
- Posts: 66910
- Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 12:31 pm
- Country: Switzerland
- Location: Lugano
- Contact:
Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
Lawsuit launched against environment minister in bid to halt African penguin extinction
Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach on 13 March, 2024. The African Penguin has already lost 97% of its population. If current trends persist, the species will be extinct in the wild by 2035. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
By Kristin Engel | 22 Mar 2024
Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has barred fishing around key African Penguin breeding colonies, but conservation bodies say the closures fail to reduce competition with commercial purse-seine fishing*, enabling them to infringe on African Penguin prey, and do not correspond with the Penguins' core foraging areas
*Purse seining is a non-selective fishing method that captures everything that it surrounds, including protected species. Sea turtles can be captured by a purse seine as it is set and then become entangled in the net mesh as it is hauled in.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In a desperate bid to save the endangered African penguin from extinction, local conservation bodies have initiated legal action against Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy. The lawsuit challenges the minister’s failure to implement biologically meaningful fishery closures around African Penguin breeding areas.
The application, brought by the Biodiversity Law Centre (BLC), representing BirdLife South Africa (BLSA) and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), seeks the review and setting aside of the minister’s decision on 4 August 2023 regarding the closures to fishing around key African penguin breeding colonies, instead of what the applicants describe as biologically meaningful closures.
The application is being brought against Creecy; the deputy director-general of fisheries management in the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE); the deputy director-general of oceans and coasts in the DFFE; the South African Pelagic Fishing Industry Association; and the Eastern Cape Pelagic Association.
On 4 August 2023, Creecy announced that “interim closures” around breeding colonies at Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point, Dyer Island, St Croix Island and Bird Island would continue, after being implemented first in September 2022.
The applicants argue that this was patently irrational and that the closures announced, which will be in place for 10 years until December 2033 — just more than a year from the possible extinction date of 2035 — were biologically meaningless as they fail to reduce competition with commercial small pelagic fishing and do not correspond with African Penguins’ core foraging area.
Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach on 13 March 2024. African penguins are only found on the coastlines of southern Africa, in South Africa and Namibia. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
This comes as the species’ status on the IUCN red list is being assessed to be moved from “endangered” to “critically endangered”. The latest census in 2023, reflected just 8,534 breeding pairs in South Africa and 1,192 breeding pairs in Namibia — a staggering decline from the 42,768 breeding pairs in South Africa in 1999.
If current trends persist, experts have repeatedly stated that the species will be extinct in the wild by 2035 — within this lifetime.
The crisis is driven primarily by the seabirds’ lack of access to prey, as the species has to compete with purse seine fishing, which continues to catch sardine and anchovy in the waters surrounding the six largest African penguin breeding colonies, home to an estimated 90% of South Africa’s African penguins.
BLSA and Sanccob are now legally challenging the decision to implement no-take fishing zones for a period of 10 years around six key African penguin breeding colonies. They argue that since the size of the closures is inadequate, they cannot remain in place for a decade.
The closures implemented by the minister were aimed at reducing the competition between African penguins and the commercial small pelagic fisheries. Anchovies and sardines, an essential food source for African penguins, are increasingly scarce as a result of overfishing in their habitats.
Executive director of the BLC Kate Handley said: “This is the first litigation in South Africa invoking the Minister’s constitutional obligation to prevent extinction of an endangered species. It follows her failure — since at least 2018 — to implement biologically meaningful closures around African Penguin breeding areas, despite scientific evidence that such closures improve the species’ access to their critical sardine and anchovy food source, thereby contributing toward arresting the decline of the African Penguin.”
Handley said the minister has failed her statutory and constitutional obligations to institute necessary measures to prevent the African penguin’s extinction.
When Daily Maverick requested comment from the DFFE and Creecy, we were told that the Department could not comment on the merits of the application at this stage.
The applicants argue that for more than six years, the minister gave preference to a consensus-driven solution above her obligation to ensure the survival of the species, which suffered an alarming decline of almost 8% per year on her watch.
BLSA seabird conservation programme manager Dr Alistair McInnes added that the African Penguin’s survival depended on the right decision being taken now.
McInnes told Daily Maverick that the implementation of purse seine no-take zones around penguin colonies was recognised as a biologically meaningful intervention contributing positively to population recovery.
“Restricting purse seine fishing around breeding colonies is a key component of alleviating threats associated with prey availability for the species and is a critical intervention to help population recovery. If adequate restrictions are not implemented and other major threats persist then there is a strong chance of the continued high rates of decline leading to forecasted extinction by 2035,” he said.
The minister’s decision
This minister’s decision regarding the continuation of “interim closures” came after an international panel of experts made recommendations regarding fishing closures adjacent to South Africa’s African penguin breeding colonies and declines in the penguin population.
McInnes told Daily Maverick that the recommendations made it clear that the closure designs and implementation need to first cover a period in time aligned to the biology of the species, which was endorsed by government and that the conservation sector was satisfied with, i.e. 10 years with a review after six years.
Secondly, he said they need to spatially represent the penguins’ preferred foraging areas around each colony which, in most instances, has not been met by the current closures around six colonies.
“Both of these recommendations need to be met to afford penguins the best chance of ameliorating the threat of competition for prey around their breeding colonies. These need to be implemented as a matter of urgency given the current precipitous decline of this species and the anticipated extinction date if current rates of decline persist,” McInnes said.
The recommendations also provided a method for determining the appropriate island delineations which would seek to optimise the benefits of closures to African penguins, while minimising costs to the small-pelagic purse-seine industry.
The panel’s recommendations were provided to the minister in July 2023 to take definitive, science-based decisions regarding island closures after years of indecision and debate and on 4 August 2023, the minister made her decision.
The applicants stated that during this time, in 2023, the species fell below the 10,000 breeding pairs mark for the first time in history.
Sanccob research manager Dr Katta Ludynia believed the minister was selective about which recommendations should be followed.
“Inexplicably, she failed to follow the critical recommendation regarding how closures should be delineated. Instead, the minister decided to extend the meaningless interim closures, unless agreement between the conservation sector and the fishing industry could be reached on an alternative,” Ludynia said.
Handley said the review application was a watershed, and potentially precedent-setting case, as it could give weight to the South African government’s obligation to protect endangered species and, particularly in this instance, the African penguin.
The applicants want the court to ensure a set of meaningful closures were identified using the recommendations of the panel and were imposed around all six islands.
Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach on 13 March 2024. Boulders Penguin Colony in Simons Town is home to a unique and endangered land-based colony of African penguins. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
What prompted the litigation?
Before launching litigation, Ludynia said Sanccob together with BLSA tried engaging with the DFFE and industry on several occasions to mitigate the minister’s August 2023 decision and secure biologically meaningful closures.
However, it became apparent on 14 November 2023 that the fishing industry persisted in its position that no closures were necessary. The deadline of 31 December 2023 for an “agreement” between the conservation sector and industry thus came and went with no closure agreement.
Ludynia said, “Closures must match areas of importance to African penguins and be able to reduce competition between African penguins and Industry for sardine and anchovy”.
Moreover, McInnes said the notion that an alternative set of closures could be delineated by agreement between conservationists and industry defeated the purpose of the panel, which was initiated to end many rounds of disagreement between these stakeholder groups and the various conservation and fisheries-focused branches of the DFFE.
Impending extinction of the African penguin
A submission is currently being made to the IUCN for the African Penguin to be uplisted from “endangered” to “critically endangered”. BirdLife SA and Sanccob were part of a team that provided inputs into the updated red list assessment of the African penguin, and this assessment has been submitted to BirdLife International to be included in their formal assessment process of the IUCN.
BLSA’s McInnes said the need for the reassessment was based on research led by Dr Richard Sherley (University of Exeter) who recently submitted a scientific paper together with scientists from BLSA, Sanccb, other NGOs, academia and government.
“This paper currently under review (so not available at this stage) makes a case for uplisting of the African penguin from globally Endangered to globally Critically Endangered. This is one step closer to extinction and the assessment by Sherley et al shows that the global population has been decreasing by 7.9% per annum over the last 10 years; if these trends persist the species could be extinct in the wild by 2035,” he said.
This scientific assessment has also been submitted to BirdLife International who facilitate red listing assessments for the IUCN. The submission included a review of the current status of the species including population status and threats.
The decline of African penguins at Boulders Beach and other habitats stems from overfishing, habitat destruction, effects of oil spills and other marine pollution, impacts of global warming on fish stocks and fish movement, and irresponsible tourism activities. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
Both of these are currently under review and will be assessed later in the year with a decision regarding uplisting expected by December 2024.
Sanccob’s Ludynia added that the African penguin is currently Endangered, but the census concluded in 2023 indicates that African Penguins meet the criteria to be listed as Critically Endangered – which is one step away from extinction.
To be uplisted to Critically Endangered, the decline has to be over 80% over the last three generations (30 years for African penguins) to qualify under criteria A2 of the IUCN.
Ludynia said, “The current decline over the last three generations is 78%, thus just short of 80%; however, criteria A4a states that one can consider a projection into the future.
“We have used just one generation into the future, i.e. 20 years into the past and 10 years into the future, and the model shows that the species will exceed the 80% threshold (under criterion A4ab) with a high probability by 2028.”
Accordingly, SANCCOB and other stakeholders involved in its conservation suggest that the African Penguin should now be considered Critically Endangered, not just Endangered.
“The projected date on which African penguins are anticipated to become extinct in the wild is 2035 (if nothing changes). The ineffective interim closures are in place until the end of 2033, i.e. nothing will change. Populations are regularly assessed for IUCN classification and the current dramatic decline at St Croix Island, as well as the Namibian colonies, has led to the re-assessment,” she said. DM
Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach on 13 March, 2024. The African Penguin has already lost 97% of its population. If current trends persist, the species will be extinct in the wild by 2035. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
By Kristin Engel | 22 Mar 2024
Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has barred fishing around key African Penguin breeding colonies, but conservation bodies say the closures fail to reduce competition with commercial purse-seine fishing*, enabling them to infringe on African Penguin prey, and do not correspond with the Penguins' core foraging areas
*Purse seining is a non-selective fishing method that captures everything that it surrounds, including protected species. Sea turtles can be captured by a purse seine as it is set and then become entangled in the net mesh as it is hauled in.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In a desperate bid to save the endangered African penguin from extinction, local conservation bodies have initiated legal action against Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy. The lawsuit challenges the minister’s failure to implement biologically meaningful fishery closures around African Penguin breeding areas.
The application, brought by the Biodiversity Law Centre (BLC), representing BirdLife South Africa (BLSA) and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), seeks the review and setting aside of the minister’s decision on 4 August 2023 regarding the closures to fishing around key African penguin breeding colonies, instead of what the applicants describe as biologically meaningful closures.
The application is being brought against Creecy; the deputy director-general of fisheries management in the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE); the deputy director-general of oceans and coasts in the DFFE; the South African Pelagic Fishing Industry Association; and the Eastern Cape Pelagic Association.
On 4 August 2023, Creecy announced that “interim closures” around breeding colonies at Dassen Island, Robben Island, Stony Point, Dyer Island, St Croix Island and Bird Island would continue, after being implemented first in September 2022.
The applicants argue that this was patently irrational and that the closures announced, which will be in place for 10 years until December 2033 — just more than a year from the possible extinction date of 2035 — were biologically meaningless as they fail to reduce competition with commercial small pelagic fishing and do not correspond with African Penguins’ core foraging area.
Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach on 13 March 2024. African penguins are only found on the coastlines of southern Africa, in South Africa and Namibia. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
This comes as the species’ status on the IUCN red list is being assessed to be moved from “endangered” to “critically endangered”. The latest census in 2023, reflected just 8,534 breeding pairs in South Africa and 1,192 breeding pairs in Namibia — a staggering decline from the 42,768 breeding pairs in South Africa in 1999.
If current trends persist, experts have repeatedly stated that the species will be extinct in the wild by 2035 — within this lifetime.
The crisis is driven primarily by the seabirds’ lack of access to prey, as the species has to compete with purse seine fishing, which continues to catch sardine and anchovy in the waters surrounding the six largest African penguin breeding colonies, home to an estimated 90% of South Africa’s African penguins.
BLSA and Sanccob are now legally challenging the decision to implement no-take fishing zones for a period of 10 years around six key African penguin breeding colonies. They argue that since the size of the closures is inadequate, they cannot remain in place for a decade.
The closures implemented by the minister were aimed at reducing the competition between African penguins and the commercial small pelagic fisheries. Anchovies and sardines, an essential food source for African penguins, are increasingly scarce as a result of overfishing in their habitats.
Executive director of the BLC Kate Handley said: “This is the first litigation in South Africa invoking the Minister’s constitutional obligation to prevent extinction of an endangered species. It follows her failure — since at least 2018 — to implement biologically meaningful closures around African Penguin breeding areas, despite scientific evidence that such closures improve the species’ access to their critical sardine and anchovy food source, thereby contributing toward arresting the decline of the African Penguin.”
Handley said the minister has failed her statutory and constitutional obligations to institute necessary measures to prevent the African penguin’s extinction.
When Daily Maverick requested comment from the DFFE and Creecy, we were told that the Department could not comment on the merits of the application at this stage.
The applicants argue that for more than six years, the minister gave preference to a consensus-driven solution above her obligation to ensure the survival of the species, which suffered an alarming decline of almost 8% per year on her watch.
BLSA seabird conservation programme manager Dr Alistair McInnes added that the African Penguin’s survival depended on the right decision being taken now.
McInnes told Daily Maverick that the implementation of purse seine no-take zones around penguin colonies was recognised as a biologically meaningful intervention contributing positively to population recovery.
“Restricting purse seine fishing around breeding colonies is a key component of alleviating threats associated with prey availability for the species and is a critical intervention to help population recovery. If adequate restrictions are not implemented and other major threats persist then there is a strong chance of the continued high rates of decline leading to forecasted extinction by 2035,” he said.
The minister’s decision
This minister’s decision regarding the continuation of “interim closures” came after an international panel of experts made recommendations regarding fishing closures adjacent to South Africa’s African penguin breeding colonies and declines in the penguin population.
McInnes told Daily Maverick that the recommendations made it clear that the closure designs and implementation need to first cover a period in time aligned to the biology of the species, which was endorsed by government and that the conservation sector was satisfied with, i.e. 10 years with a review after six years.
Secondly, he said they need to spatially represent the penguins’ preferred foraging areas around each colony which, in most instances, has not been met by the current closures around six colonies.
“Both of these recommendations need to be met to afford penguins the best chance of ameliorating the threat of competition for prey around their breeding colonies. These need to be implemented as a matter of urgency given the current precipitous decline of this species and the anticipated extinction date if current rates of decline persist,” McInnes said.
The recommendations also provided a method for determining the appropriate island delineations which would seek to optimise the benefits of closures to African penguins, while minimising costs to the small-pelagic purse-seine industry.
The panel’s recommendations were provided to the minister in July 2023 to take definitive, science-based decisions regarding island closures after years of indecision and debate and on 4 August 2023, the minister made her decision.
The applicants stated that during this time, in 2023, the species fell below the 10,000 breeding pairs mark for the first time in history.
Sanccob research manager Dr Katta Ludynia believed the minister was selective about which recommendations should be followed.
“Inexplicably, she failed to follow the critical recommendation regarding how closures should be delineated. Instead, the minister decided to extend the meaningless interim closures, unless agreement between the conservation sector and the fishing industry could be reached on an alternative,” Ludynia said.
Handley said the review application was a watershed, and potentially precedent-setting case, as it could give weight to the South African government’s obligation to protect endangered species and, particularly in this instance, the African penguin.
The applicants want the court to ensure a set of meaningful closures were identified using the recommendations of the panel and were imposed around all six islands.
Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach on 13 March 2024. Boulders Penguin Colony in Simons Town is home to a unique and endangered land-based colony of African penguins. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
What prompted the litigation?
Before launching litigation, Ludynia said Sanccob together with BLSA tried engaging with the DFFE and industry on several occasions to mitigate the minister’s August 2023 decision and secure biologically meaningful closures.
However, it became apparent on 14 November 2023 that the fishing industry persisted in its position that no closures were necessary. The deadline of 31 December 2023 for an “agreement” between the conservation sector and industry thus came and went with no closure agreement.
Ludynia said, “Closures must match areas of importance to African penguins and be able to reduce competition between African penguins and Industry for sardine and anchovy”.
Moreover, McInnes said the notion that an alternative set of closures could be delineated by agreement between conservationists and industry defeated the purpose of the panel, which was initiated to end many rounds of disagreement between these stakeholder groups and the various conservation and fisheries-focused branches of the DFFE.
Impending extinction of the African penguin
A submission is currently being made to the IUCN for the African Penguin to be uplisted from “endangered” to “critically endangered”. BirdLife SA and Sanccob were part of a team that provided inputs into the updated red list assessment of the African penguin, and this assessment has been submitted to BirdLife International to be included in their formal assessment process of the IUCN.
BLSA’s McInnes said the need for the reassessment was based on research led by Dr Richard Sherley (University of Exeter) who recently submitted a scientific paper together with scientists from BLSA, Sanccb, other NGOs, academia and government.
“This paper currently under review (so not available at this stage) makes a case for uplisting of the African penguin from globally Endangered to globally Critically Endangered. This is one step closer to extinction and the assessment by Sherley et al shows that the global population has been decreasing by 7.9% per annum over the last 10 years; if these trends persist the species could be extinct in the wild by 2035,” he said.
This scientific assessment has also been submitted to BirdLife International who facilitate red listing assessments for the IUCN. The submission included a review of the current status of the species including population status and threats.
The decline of African penguins at Boulders Beach and other habitats stems from overfishing, habitat destruction, effects of oil spills and other marine pollution, impacts of global warming on fish stocks and fish movement, and irresponsible tourism activities. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
Both of these are currently under review and will be assessed later in the year with a decision regarding uplisting expected by December 2024.
Sanccob’s Ludynia added that the African penguin is currently Endangered, but the census concluded in 2023 indicates that African Penguins meet the criteria to be listed as Critically Endangered – which is one step away from extinction.
To be uplisted to Critically Endangered, the decline has to be over 80% over the last three generations (30 years for African penguins) to qualify under criteria A2 of the IUCN.
Ludynia said, “The current decline over the last three generations is 78%, thus just short of 80%; however, criteria A4a states that one can consider a projection into the future.
“We have used just one generation into the future, i.e. 20 years into the past and 10 years into the future, and the model shows that the species will exceed the 80% threshold (under criterion A4ab) with a high probability by 2028.”
Accordingly, SANCCOB and other stakeholders involved in its conservation suggest that the African Penguin should now be considered Critically Endangered, not just Endangered.
“The projected date on which African penguins are anticipated to become extinct in the wild is 2035 (if nothing changes). The ineffective interim closures are in place until the end of 2033, i.e. nothing will change. Populations are regularly assessed for IUCN classification and the current dramatic decline at St Croix Island, as well as the Namibian colonies, has led to the re-assessment,” she said. DM
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
African Penguins Face Dire Future as Fish Stocks Decline
June 13, 2024
Conservationists watch and note as Penguin 999.000000007425712 returns to the Stony Point colony in Betty’s Bay, South Africa, after a day of foraging. She left early in the morning weighing 2.7 kg and returned having gained only 285 grams, a worrying sign of dwindling fish stocks.
Eleanor Weideman, a coastal seabird project manager for BirdLife South Africa, is concerned. “In a good year, they come back with their stomachs bulging,” she says. Penguins can typically gain up to one-third of their body weight in a day. “But there’s just no fish out there anymore.”
What’s more, this food is not just for her – it is for her mate and their babies. Tomorrow, the penguin couple will switch roles; she will stay in the nest while he forages. If conditions improve, they might raise two clutches of eggs this season.
However, at the current rate, they may have to abandon breeding altogether. Over the past 120 years, the African penguin population has plummeted by over 99%. With a yearly decline of 7.9%, they could be extinct in the wild by 2035.
The extinction of African penguins would not only be an ecological catastrophe—penguins serve as an indicator species for their ecosystem—but also a significant blow to South Africa’s tourism industry. The Boulders Beach colony in Cape Town contributes 311 million rand (£13 million) annually to the local economy.
In response, BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds have taken legal action against South Africa’s Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, Barbara Creecy. They claim she failed to implement crucial fishing closures around six penguin colonies, which host 76% of the global African penguin population.
Alistair McInnes, head of the Seabird Conservation Programme at BirdLife South Africa, explains that the proposed fishing bans would apply only to commercial vessels using purse-seine nets, which are large nets designed to catch entire shoals of small pelagic fish like sardines and anchovies. These species are vital to the penguins’ diet, and their stocks are at historic lows.
Cape cormorants, another endangered bird species, and small-scale handline fishers, who depend on sardines and anchovies, also stand to benefit from the proposed bans. An expert panel appointed by Creecy reported in July 2023 that targeted fishing closures would likely aid penguin Conservation.
However, the minister implemented only limited closures. For instance, at Stony Point, the protected area is a third of what the panel recommended, making food scarcity a persistent issue for penguins like 999.000000007425712.
The South African pelagic fishing industry disputes the court action, claiming the impact of their fishing on penguin numbers is minimal and criticizing the NGOs for delaying efforts to identify the primary causes of the penguins’ decline. Creecy’s office did not provide further clarification on her decision-making process. While fishing is a significant factor, it is not the only threat to penguins.
Climate change, land predators, and noise Pollution from ship refueling at the St Croix colony near Gqeberha also pose dangers. Nonetheless, prey availability remains crucial for the survival and reproduction of specialist predators like African penguins. The Boulders colony near Cape Town, where purse-seine fishing has long been banned, is the only colony with a stable population.
This article by Trinity Sparke was first published by One Green Planet on 1 June 2024. Image Credit :Only Fabrizio/Shutterstock.
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Lisbeth
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
On the frontline to save the African penguin from extinction
Christina Hagan with the first penguins to arrive at the De Hoop penguin colony in June 2022. (Photo: David Roberts)
By Kristin Engel - 09 Oct 2024
Scientist Christina Hagen is at the forefront of one of the most crucial conservation battles of our time – to save the African penguin from extinction. Hagen talks about what it’s like spending almost 10 years behind the scenes, trying to halt the decline of this special species and bring it back from the brink of extinction.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As BirdLife South Africa’s (BLSA) driving force behind the establishment of the new penguin company at De Hoop, Christina Hagen, together with her colleagues at BLSA, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), CapeNature and others, is working tirelessly to save Africa’s only penguin while it is being pushed to the brink of extinction by a man-made catastrophe.
Hagen is responsible for BLSA’s work in establishing a new African penguin colony at De Hoop, identifying potential sites, investigating techniques that could be used and liaising with other stakeholders on this work.
Hagen is just one of the many parts in this group of stakeholders and her role goes far beyond research and planning; she is on the ground placing lifelike decoys and playing recorded penguin calls to mimic a thriving colony, all in the hope of attracting African penguins to De Hoop as a breeding ground.
Hagen has been the Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation with BirdLife South Africa since 2015, having worked as their coastal seabird conservation manager since 2012.
Hagen told Daily Maverick that the African penguin was in big trouble and likely going to be uplisted from “endangered” to “critically endangered” at the end of October – just one category below extinction.
African penguins at Boulders in Cape Town. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
Testimony to this is the fact that over the past century, the population of breeding African penguin pairs declined from more than a million to fewer than 10,000 for the first time in history.
The decline has primarily been attributed to a lack of available food due to climate change and competition from commercial purse seine small pelagic fishing around its breeding colonies. This affects the species’ survival and breeding success.
Cape gannets and Cape cormorants are also facing these threats, since both feed on sardines and anchovies. Their populations are also decreasing, although not as rapidly as the penguins.
Alistair McInnes, BLSA’s seabird conservation programme manager, said that when people visit the penguin colonies at Stony Point or Boulders in the Western Cape, they see the birds in vast groups and don’t realise the extent of the threat or what’s hurting the penguin populations.
“The main issue is their food supply and other threats at sea, which people don’t see,” McInnes said.
South Africa has implemented no-take zones where fishing is prohibited, to help restore fish populations that penguins feed on, primarily sardines and anchovies. But ornithologists have found that these zones are inadequate for penguin conservation, and that biologically meaningful closures are crucial to ensure the species’ survival.
This is the basis of a lawsuit currently under way against South Africa’s environment minister, which seeks to have meaningful rather than inadequate closures implemented.
Working to save such a species from extinction and watching its decline despite all the efforts is demoralising, Hagen said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to always keep a positive outlook when you think about all the threats that are happening and see the state of the colonies,” she said.
But they would not be doing this work if they didn’t think there was hope.
“We have such a committed and dedicated group of people trying to save the species that does give me hope… We can turn the tide. We just need to keep going. We can’t let the penguins down and give up,” Hagen said.
An African penguin outside the Boulders colony. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
On the ground and in the data
Hagen spends a lot of her time behind a computer, writing reports, analysing and collecting data from the colony. But she also spends a significant amount of time in the De Hoop colony itself.
“When I’m there, the first and most important thing that I do is check the predator-proof fence to make sure that there’s no damage to it, that the electric fence is strong and working.
“Then I go and look at the area where the penguins are and see how many are there. It’s always exciting to see a few penguins hanging around in the rocks and see what they’re doing, if they’re moulting or just sitting, or even just displaying nesting behaviour,” she said.
As South Africans, Hagen believes we have a responsibility to safeguard the species because it’s the only one that occurs on the African continent. Penguins are known indicators of the marine environment.
“By studying penguins and seeing what they are doing, we can get an idea of what state the marine environment is in. They are the sort of canaries in the coal mine, and having them there gives us insight into what is happening. The fact that they’re not doing well is worrying. It tells us that the marine environment is also not doing well,” she said.
Christina Hagen in the De Hoop Nature Reserve where she is responsible for BirdLife South Africa’s work in establishing an African penguin Colony. (Photo: David Roberts)
Call to arms
According to conservation groups, it has never been more critical to get involved and raise awareness if society hopes to save African penguins from the verge of extinction.
The penguins face threats from fishing pressure, increases in noise pollution from ship-to-ship bunkering, general pollution around the coast and climate change – making it difficult for the public to get directly involved to save them.
“It’s hard for people to do something directly, but supporting our efforts and showing the government, and the people in charge, that the public cares and really doesn’t want the penguin to go extinct, is important because it helps apply pressure in the right situations,” Hagen said.
But on Tuesday, 8 October 2024, a new campaign was launched by Sanccob, BLSA and ocean conservation charity Blue Marine, urging the South African government, locals and the international community to take immediate action to save the African Penguin. These groups have launched a petition to build public support for the cause to save this species.
The organisations are also calling on government to adequately enforce existing marine pollution regulations and close legal loopholes that currently enable pollution, particularly noise pollution, to interfere with penguin breeding.
Nicky Stander, head of conservation at Sanccob, said they cannot afford to wait any longer to protect the species properly.
“In just over a decade they could no longer exist, which not only has an impact on our marine ecosystem, but also on South Africa’s economy and ecotourism… Individuals must come together to save them at all costs.” DM
Christina Hagan with the first penguins to arrive at the De Hoop penguin colony in June 2022. (Photo: David Roberts)
By Kristin Engel - 09 Oct 2024
Scientist Christina Hagen is at the forefront of one of the most crucial conservation battles of our time – to save the African penguin from extinction. Hagen talks about what it’s like spending almost 10 years behind the scenes, trying to halt the decline of this special species and bring it back from the brink of extinction.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As BirdLife South Africa’s (BLSA) driving force behind the establishment of the new penguin company at De Hoop, Christina Hagen, together with her colleagues at BLSA, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), CapeNature and others, is working tirelessly to save Africa’s only penguin while it is being pushed to the brink of extinction by a man-made catastrophe.
Hagen is responsible for BLSA’s work in establishing a new African penguin colony at De Hoop, identifying potential sites, investigating techniques that could be used and liaising with other stakeholders on this work.
Hagen is just one of the many parts in this group of stakeholders and her role goes far beyond research and planning; she is on the ground placing lifelike decoys and playing recorded penguin calls to mimic a thriving colony, all in the hope of attracting African penguins to De Hoop as a breeding ground.
Hagen has been the Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation with BirdLife South Africa since 2015, having worked as their coastal seabird conservation manager since 2012.
Hagen told Daily Maverick that the African penguin was in big trouble and likely going to be uplisted from “endangered” to “critically endangered” at the end of October – just one category below extinction.
African penguins at Boulders in Cape Town. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
Testimony to this is the fact that over the past century, the population of breeding African penguin pairs declined from more than a million to fewer than 10,000 for the first time in history.
The decline has primarily been attributed to a lack of available food due to climate change and competition from commercial purse seine small pelagic fishing around its breeding colonies. This affects the species’ survival and breeding success.
Cape gannets and Cape cormorants are also facing these threats, since both feed on sardines and anchovies. Their populations are also decreasing, although not as rapidly as the penguins.
Alistair McInnes, BLSA’s seabird conservation programme manager, said that when people visit the penguin colonies at Stony Point or Boulders in the Western Cape, they see the birds in vast groups and don’t realise the extent of the threat or what’s hurting the penguin populations.
“The main issue is their food supply and other threats at sea, which people don’t see,” McInnes said.
South Africa has implemented no-take zones where fishing is prohibited, to help restore fish populations that penguins feed on, primarily sardines and anchovies. But ornithologists have found that these zones are inadequate for penguin conservation, and that biologically meaningful closures are crucial to ensure the species’ survival.
This is the basis of a lawsuit currently under way against South Africa’s environment minister, which seeks to have meaningful rather than inadequate closures implemented.
Working to save such a species from extinction and watching its decline despite all the efforts is demoralising, Hagen said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to always keep a positive outlook when you think about all the threats that are happening and see the state of the colonies,” she said.
But they would not be doing this work if they didn’t think there was hope.
“We have such a committed and dedicated group of people trying to save the species that does give me hope… We can turn the tide. We just need to keep going. We can’t let the penguins down and give up,” Hagen said.
An African penguin outside the Boulders colony. (Photo: Kristin Engel)
On the ground and in the data
Hagen spends a lot of her time behind a computer, writing reports, analysing and collecting data from the colony. But she also spends a significant amount of time in the De Hoop colony itself.
“When I’m there, the first and most important thing that I do is check the predator-proof fence to make sure that there’s no damage to it, that the electric fence is strong and working.
“Then I go and look at the area where the penguins are and see how many are there. It’s always exciting to see a few penguins hanging around in the rocks and see what they’re doing, if they’re moulting or just sitting, or even just displaying nesting behaviour,” she said.
As South Africans, Hagen believes we have a responsibility to safeguard the species because it’s the only one that occurs on the African continent. Penguins are known indicators of the marine environment.
“By studying penguins and seeing what they are doing, we can get an idea of what state the marine environment is in. They are the sort of canaries in the coal mine, and having them there gives us insight into what is happening. The fact that they’re not doing well is worrying. It tells us that the marine environment is also not doing well,” she said.
Christina Hagen in the De Hoop Nature Reserve where she is responsible for BirdLife South Africa’s work in establishing an African penguin Colony. (Photo: David Roberts)
Call to arms
According to conservation groups, it has never been more critical to get involved and raise awareness if society hopes to save African penguins from the verge of extinction.
The penguins face threats from fishing pressure, increases in noise pollution from ship-to-ship bunkering, general pollution around the coast and climate change – making it difficult for the public to get directly involved to save them.
“It’s hard for people to do something directly, but supporting our efforts and showing the government, and the people in charge, that the public cares and really doesn’t want the penguin to go extinct, is important because it helps apply pressure in the right situations,” Hagen said.
But on Tuesday, 8 October 2024, a new campaign was launched by Sanccob, BLSA and ocean conservation charity Blue Marine, urging the South African government, locals and the international community to take immediate action to save the African Penguin. These groups have launched a petition to build public support for the cause to save this species.
The organisations are also calling on government to adequately enforce existing marine pollution regulations and close legal loopholes that currently enable pollution, particularly noise pollution, to interfere with penguin breeding.
Nicky Stander, head of conservation at Sanccob, said they cannot afford to wait any longer to protect the species properly.
“In just over a decade they could no longer exist, which not only has an impact on our marine ecosystem, but also on South Africa’s economy and ecotourism… Individuals must come together to save them at all costs.” DM
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
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Lisbeth
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
African penguins could be extinct by 2035 – how to save them
Ihsaan Haffejee/Anadolu/Getty Images
November 14, 2024 - Lorien Pichegru - Adjunct professor, Nelson Mandela University. Alistair McInnes, Research Associate, Nelson Mandela University
Katrin Ludynia- Honorary Research Associate and Research Manager at SANCCOB, University of Cape Town
Peter Barham - Professor emeritus, University of Bristol
In October 2024, the African penguin became the first penguin species in the world to be listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
This is a sad record for Africa’s only penguin, and means it is now just one step away from extinction.
Uso/Getty Images
How did this happen? African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) are found only in Namibia and South Africa. Their numbers have been declining since the 1800s. At that time, they were burnt in ships’ boilers, their eggs were harvested and consumed as a delicacy, and their nests were destroyed by guano-harvesters seeking a rich source of fertiliser.
Such activities are fortunately no longer allowed. African penguins have been protected under South Africa’s Sea Birds and Seals Protection Act since 1973 (and more recently under the Marine Threatened or Protected Species Regulations since 2017).
These laws and regulations ban the capture of penguins or their eggs, and any intentional harm done to them. Fertilisers no longer use guano (penguin excrement). After egg and guano harvesting stopped, the lack of prey (small fish like sardines and anchovies) became the main issue for penguins from the early 2000s.
The impacts of climate change on the distribution and abundance of their food, and competition with industrial fisheries, have contributed to a 70% reduction in this penguin’s population between 2000 and 2024.
We are a group of scientists from universities and non-governmental organisations that have, for years, focused on solutions to save the African penguin. Today, unless the South African government takes urgent steps to protect the African penguin, it will likely become extinct in the wild by 2035. At present there are fewer than 20,000 birds left in the wild.
Penguins are like the canaries in the coal mine. They are disappearing because the ecosystem they rely on, together with many other species, including fish targeted by commercial fisheries, is in dire straits. By saving them, we protect their ecosystem and the other species that rely on it.
Penguins are also valuable to the economy, bringing in revenue from tourism.
What’s worked for the penguin so far
An artificial nest. Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images
The destruction of African penguins’ nesting habitat over the centuries has been partly repaired by setting up artificial nests in penguin colonies. New research has found that these improve the number of penguin eggs that hatch by 16.5% compared to natural surface or bush nests which remain vulnerable to the elements.
Steps to protect the African penguins’ food supply also worked. One step was the experimental “no-take zones”, where the South African government prohibited fishing around the penguins’ breeding areas between 2008 and 2019.
The government closed commercial fishing of sardines and anchovies in a 20km radius around Robben Island on the west coast and St Croix Island in Algoa Bay for three years. During this time, commercial fishing around the neighbouring penguin colonies of Dassen Island and Bird Island was still permitted. The closure was alternated every three years until 2019 to see if it affected the penguin populations.
The results were positive. Penguins were able to catch fish with less effort and their chicks’ health and survival rates improved. The population increased by about 1% – a small increase, but very important, considering they were already endangered.
In parallel, the African Penguin Biodiversity Management Plan was published in 2013. The plan focused on managing predators, such as Cape fur seals and kelp gulls, and rescuing abandoned eggs and chicks. Thousands of individual penguins were saved and released into the wild over the years.
What has gone wrong for the penguin
Despite these efforts, the African penguin population fell faster from the mid-2010s. This was mostly due to the sudden collapse of the colony at St Croix Island, then the world’s largest African penguin colony.
This collapse coincided with the establishment of ship-to-ship bunkering activities (refuelling ships at sea rather than in ports) in Algoa Bay in 2016. While the ships were refuelling, four oil spills occurred.
Ship-to-ship bunkering also increased underwater noise pollution due to a ten-fold increase of maritime traffic in the bay.
Our previous research has revealed that African penguins are highly sensitive to underwater noise. Noise from ships or drilling equipment chases penguins away from their feeding grounds.
This also uses up the African penguins’ energy, often at a time when they have none to spare. Penguins need energy reserves before starting their annual moult, when they stay ashore for three weeks without eating to replace all their feathers. If they don’t find enough food before or after that stressful period, they die.
Can the African penguin be saved?
The experimental use of no-take zones in penguin breeding areas ended in 2019. A panel of international experts was then appointed by the South African government to review the experiment and suggest a way forward.
The panel said no-take zones should be put in place around all colonies. They recommended ways to balance the benefit to penguins against the cost to fisheries.
But the government departed from the panel’s recommendations and put in place fishing closures aimed at minimising economic losses to fisheries, and not conserving penguins. For example, they closed down fishing in some areas where penguins don’t hunt for fish.
Read more: Are seismic surveys driving penguins from their feeding grounds?
In March 2024, the non-profit organisation BirdLife South Africa and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, asked the Pretoria high court to review and set aside the Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment’s August 2023 decision on fishing closures around key African penguin breeding colonies. The case is still underway.
Meanwhile, bunkering in Algoa Bay has stopped temporarily after the South African Revenue Service detained five ships in September 2023 on allegations of breaching customs laws.
Subsequently, small increases in the St Croix Island penguin population have been seen for the first time in nearly ten years.
African penguins can bounce back when environmental conditions are good. Government and non-governmental organisations have worked hard to prevent various threats to penguins. But critical work remains to be done to protect their foraging habitat (the ocean around their colonies) from polluting activities.
Penguins also need protection from competition with industrial fisheries for fish supplies.
Dr Lauren Waller of the Endangered Wildlife Trust contributed to this article.
Ihsaan Haffejee/Anadolu/Getty Images
November 14, 2024 - Lorien Pichegru - Adjunct professor, Nelson Mandela University. Alistair McInnes, Research Associate, Nelson Mandela University
Katrin Ludynia- Honorary Research Associate and Research Manager at SANCCOB, University of Cape Town
Peter Barham - Professor emeritus, University of Bristol
In October 2024, the African penguin became the first penguin species in the world to be listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
This is a sad record for Africa’s only penguin, and means it is now just one step away from extinction.
Uso/Getty Images
How did this happen? African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) are found only in Namibia and South Africa. Their numbers have been declining since the 1800s. At that time, they were burnt in ships’ boilers, their eggs were harvested and consumed as a delicacy, and their nests were destroyed by guano-harvesters seeking a rich source of fertiliser.
Such activities are fortunately no longer allowed. African penguins have been protected under South Africa’s Sea Birds and Seals Protection Act since 1973 (and more recently under the Marine Threatened or Protected Species Regulations since 2017).
These laws and regulations ban the capture of penguins or their eggs, and any intentional harm done to them. Fertilisers no longer use guano (penguin excrement). After egg and guano harvesting stopped, the lack of prey (small fish like sardines and anchovies) became the main issue for penguins from the early 2000s.
The impacts of climate change on the distribution and abundance of their food, and competition with industrial fisheries, have contributed to a 70% reduction in this penguin’s population between 2000 and 2024.
We are a group of scientists from universities and non-governmental organisations that have, for years, focused on solutions to save the African penguin. Today, unless the South African government takes urgent steps to protect the African penguin, it will likely become extinct in the wild by 2035. At present there are fewer than 20,000 birds left in the wild.
Penguins are like the canaries in the coal mine. They are disappearing because the ecosystem they rely on, together with many other species, including fish targeted by commercial fisheries, is in dire straits. By saving them, we protect their ecosystem and the other species that rely on it.
Penguins are also valuable to the economy, bringing in revenue from tourism.
What’s worked for the penguin so far
An artificial nest. Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images
The destruction of African penguins’ nesting habitat over the centuries has been partly repaired by setting up artificial nests in penguin colonies. New research has found that these improve the number of penguin eggs that hatch by 16.5% compared to natural surface or bush nests which remain vulnerable to the elements.
Steps to protect the African penguins’ food supply also worked. One step was the experimental “no-take zones”, where the South African government prohibited fishing around the penguins’ breeding areas between 2008 and 2019.
The government closed commercial fishing of sardines and anchovies in a 20km radius around Robben Island on the west coast and St Croix Island in Algoa Bay for three years. During this time, commercial fishing around the neighbouring penguin colonies of Dassen Island and Bird Island was still permitted. The closure was alternated every three years until 2019 to see if it affected the penguin populations.
The results were positive. Penguins were able to catch fish with less effort and their chicks’ health and survival rates improved. The population increased by about 1% – a small increase, but very important, considering they were already endangered.
In parallel, the African Penguin Biodiversity Management Plan was published in 2013. The plan focused on managing predators, such as Cape fur seals and kelp gulls, and rescuing abandoned eggs and chicks. Thousands of individual penguins were saved and released into the wild over the years.
What has gone wrong for the penguin
Despite these efforts, the African penguin population fell faster from the mid-2010s. This was mostly due to the sudden collapse of the colony at St Croix Island, then the world’s largest African penguin colony.
This collapse coincided with the establishment of ship-to-ship bunkering activities (refuelling ships at sea rather than in ports) in Algoa Bay in 2016. While the ships were refuelling, four oil spills occurred.
Ship-to-ship bunkering also increased underwater noise pollution due to a ten-fold increase of maritime traffic in the bay.
Our previous research has revealed that African penguins are highly sensitive to underwater noise. Noise from ships or drilling equipment chases penguins away from their feeding grounds.
This also uses up the African penguins’ energy, often at a time when they have none to spare. Penguins need energy reserves before starting their annual moult, when they stay ashore for three weeks without eating to replace all their feathers. If they don’t find enough food before or after that stressful period, they die.
Can the African penguin be saved?
The experimental use of no-take zones in penguin breeding areas ended in 2019. A panel of international experts was then appointed by the South African government to review the experiment and suggest a way forward.
The panel said no-take zones should be put in place around all colonies. They recommended ways to balance the benefit to penguins against the cost to fisheries.
But the government departed from the panel’s recommendations and put in place fishing closures aimed at minimising economic losses to fisheries, and not conserving penguins. For example, they closed down fishing in some areas where penguins don’t hunt for fish.
Read more: Are seismic surveys driving penguins from their feeding grounds?
In March 2024, the non-profit organisation BirdLife South Africa and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, asked the Pretoria high court to review and set aside the Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment’s August 2023 decision on fishing closures around key African penguin breeding colonies. The case is still underway.
Meanwhile, bunkering in Algoa Bay has stopped temporarily after the South African Revenue Service detained five ships in September 2023 on allegations of breaching customs laws.
Subsequently, small increases in the St Croix Island penguin population have been seen for the first time in nearly ten years.
African penguins can bounce back when environmental conditions are good. Government and non-governmental organisations have worked hard to prevent various threats to penguins. But critical work remains to be done to protect their foraging habitat (the ocean around their colonies) from polluting activities.
Penguins also need protection from competition with industrial fisheries for fish supplies.
Dr Lauren Waller of the Endangered Wildlife Trust contributed to this article.
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
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Re: Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation
Court showdown looms in fight to protect critically endangered African penguin
Illustrative image: Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach, Simon’s Town. African penguins are only found on the coastlines of southern Africa, in South Africa and Namibia. (Photo: Kristin Engel) | Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Dion George. (Photo: Gallo Images / Misha Jordaan)
By Kristin Engel | 12 Dec 2024
The African penguin litigation against South Africa’s environment minister over the limited execution of expert recommendations to safeguard the seabird’s food source is set to be heard in the new year.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, are seeking to review and set aside the decision of Environment Minister Dion George’s predecessor Barbara Creecy, to implement biologically meaningless closures to fishing around key African penguin breeding colonies which they said do not safeguard their food source.
The species faces numerous survival challenges, with the primary threat being a drastic reduction in its food supply. Sardine and anchovy stocks, crucial to the penguin’s diet, are declining due to climate change and the pressures of commercial purse-seine fishing, leading to widespread starvation and food scarcity.
The African penguin colony at Boulders Beach, Simon’s Town. (Photo: Gallo Images)
The African penguin, uplisted from endangered to critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in October 2024, could be extinct in the wild in less than 4,000 days if nothing changes, having already lost 97% of its population.
Read more: On the frontline to save the African penguin from extinction
Litigation status
In interviews with Daily Maverick, the Biodiversity Law Centre described current settlement talks with George’s legal team as a “work in progress” with no agreement reached and the court case going full steam ahead – despite the State’s delays in filing court papers.
The Biodiversity Law Centre filed its replying affidavit to the State’s answer on 29 November 2024, after the State had – very belatedly – on 19 September 2024, filed its answering affidavit where it raised arguments about more information being needed before the International Review Panel’s recommendations could be put in place. This is something the applicants strongly contest.
The case was brought on an expedited basis, due to the urgency of the species’ impending extinction, but the State’s delayed submission of its responding affidavit prevented the case from proceeding on the originally scheduled dates of 22-24 October 2024.
The hearing has now been rescheduled for 18 to 20 March 2025 in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria.
Seabird Conservation Manager at BirdLife South Africa, Dr Alistair McInnes said, “The African penguin’s survival depends on the right decision being taken now. African penguins at breeding colonies need access to food.”
Their challenge aims to compel the minister to make science-based decisions guided by the internationally recognised and constitutionally mandated precautionary principle – an approach the minister repeatedly failed to adopt since 2018, despite commissioning multiple reviews, according to McInnes.
Read more: African penguin lawsuit – Settlement talks ‘to prevent extinction’ under way
Executive director of the Biodiversity Law Centre Kate Handley told Daily Maverick that the minister proposed a working group to do further work on some of the international panel’s recommendations, but that this had not been finalised and they were still in discussion with the State.
The next hard deadline will be to file the applicants’ heads of argument at the end of January. Following that the State and industry will file on 10 February 2025.
Handley said the idea of the working group was never to suspend the litigation and that it could not settle until it was favourable for African penguins, “so we are continuing with the court case”.
“We’re proceeding as if it’s going ahead in March, so full steam ahead,” Handley said.
The arguments and settlement talks
To justify the former minister’s decision to extend interim fishing closures around African penguin breeding grounds, instead of fully taking on the International Review Panel’s recommendation to implement biologically meaningful fishing closures, the State parties contend that these temporary measures were introduced to allow additional time for gathering the necessary data for the minister and his department to implement the trade-off mechanism.
This mechanism, recommended by the International Review Panel, was designed to resolve a longstanding debate between fisheries experts and seabird scientists over the ideal configuration of island closures and their conservation benefits and to guide the minister in making an informed decision on the matter.
The applicants argued in their responding affidavit that the principle of precaution required the minister to make a rational and lawful decision based on the best available science at the time. Thus, the applicant said that the allegations made by the State failed to refute the irrationality and unlawfulness of the minister’s decision.
As for how the settlement talks were going, Handley said that “a work in progress” was the best way to describe it.
“It’s difficult. We’re talking about entrenched and opposing interests on the side of industry. We’re talking about even the conservation sector [having] very firm ideas about what the island closures should look like based on the scientific analyses that they have undertaken,” she said.
The State’s answering affidavit to the applicants’ applying affidavit appears with dichotomous views around whether the panel’s recommendation is implementable or whether further work is required.
State Attorney Dikeledi Molepo contends in the answering affidavit that further scientific studies and stakeholder engagements, as recommended by the International Review Panel, were ongoing, and the legal challenge disrupted this process.
Molepo also said that the minister acted within their legal mandate by considering the conservation of African penguins and the socioeconomic implications for the fishing industry.
The Biodiversity Law Centre’s Handley said, “Our argument is simply that there was sufficient information to make a decision, that we applied the trade-off mechanism and this is the delineation that it came out with. So it’s not necessary to do further work, the principles of precaution and best available science require the minister to have made a decision.”
With the recent uplisting of the species from “endangered” to “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List, they said that it had become even more important to raise awareness.
Read more: Seabird surgery and mad dash to save AP509, a critically endangered African penguin
This case is a first for South Africa, with conservation bodies taking the government and industry to court to try to prevent the extinction of a singular species, so this could set a precedent for future species on similar paths.
“We should keep an eye out for other species that could land up in the same scenario that we’re seeing now… One only needs to look at the South African red list and the IUCN red list to see how many species are actually facing the imminent threat of extinction,” Handley said
One of these species is Botha’s lark, South Africa’s most threatened terrestrial bird species, which faces extinction as early as 2025 with an estimated 340 individuals left in the wild in South Africa and a 90% decline in species over the past decade.
For a lot of these species, the drivers of their decline are anthropogenic causes – land use change, over-exploitation, pollution, and climate change.
“There certainly are many species that require this kind of intervention,” Handley said. DM
Illustrative image: Endangered African penguins at Boulders Beach, Simon’s Town. African penguins are only found on the coastlines of southern Africa, in South Africa and Namibia. (Photo: Kristin Engel) | Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Dion George. (Photo: Gallo Images / Misha Jordaan)
By Kristin Engel | 12 Dec 2024
The African penguin litigation against South Africa’s environment minister over the limited execution of expert recommendations to safeguard the seabird’s food source is set to be heard in the new year.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, are seeking to review and set aside the decision of Environment Minister Dion George’s predecessor Barbara Creecy, to implement biologically meaningless closures to fishing around key African penguin breeding colonies which they said do not safeguard their food source.
The species faces numerous survival challenges, with the primary threat being a drastic reduction in its food supply. Sardine and anchovy stocks, crucial to the penguin’s diet, are declining due to climate change and the pressures of commercial purse-seine fishing, leading to widespread starvation and food scarcity.
The African penguin colony at Boulders Beach, Simon’s Town. (Photo: Gallo Images)
The African penguin, uplisted from endangered to critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in October 2024, could be extinct in the wild in less than 4,000 days if nothing changes, having already lost 97% of its population.
Read more: On the frontline to save the African penguin from extinction
Litigation status
In interviews with Daily Maverick, the Biodiversity Law Centre described current settlement talks with George’s legal team as a “work in progress” with no agreement reached and the court case going full steam ahead – despite the State’s delays in filing court papers.
The Biodiversity Law Centre filed its replying affidavit to the State’s answer on 29 November 2024, after the State had – very belatedly – on 19 September 2024, filed its answering affidavit where it raised arguments about more information being needed before the International Review Panel’s recommendations could be put in place. This is something the applicants strongly contest.
The case was brought on an expedited basis, due to the urgency of the species’ impending extinction, but the State’s delayed submission of its responding affidavit prevented the case from proceeding on the originally scheduled dates of 22-24 October 2024.
The hearing has now been rescheduled for 18 to 20 March 2025 in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria.
Seabird Conservation Manager at BirdLife South Africa, Dr Alistair McInnes said, “The African penguin’s survival depends on the right decision being taken now. African penguins at breeding colonies need access to food.”
Their challenge aims to compel the minister to make science-based decisions guided by the internationally recognised and constitutionally mandated precautionary principle – an approach the minister repeatedly failed to adopt since 2018, despite commissioning multiple reviews, according to McInnes.
Read more: African penguin lawsuit – Settlement talks ‘to prevent extinction’ under way
Executive director of the Biodiversity Law Centre Kate Handley told Daily Maverick that the minister proposed a working group to do further work on some of the international panel’s recommendations, but that this had not been finalised and they were still in discussion with the State.
The next hard deadline will be to file the applicants’ heads of argument at the end of January. Following that the State and industry will file on 10 February 2025.
Handley said the idea of the working group was never to suspend the litigation and that it could not settle until it was favourable for African penguins, “so we are continuing with the court case”.
“We’re proceeding as if it’s going ahead in March, so full steam ahead,” Handley said.
The arguments and settlement talks
To justify the former minister’s decision to extend interim fishing closures around African penguin breeding grounds, instead of fully taking on the International Review Panel’s recommendation to implement biologically meaningful fishing closures, the State parties contend that these temporary measures were introduced to allow additional time for gathering the necessary data for the minister and his department to implement the trade-off mechanism.
This mechanism, recommended by the International Review Panel, was designed to resolve a longstanding debate between fisheries experts and seabird scientists over the ideal configuration of island closures and their conservation benefits and to guide the minister in making an informed decision on the matter.
The applicants argued in their responding affidavit that the principle of precaution required the minister to make a rational and lawful decision based on the best available science at the time. Thus, the applicant said that the allegations made by the State failed to refute the irrationality and unlawfulness of the minister’s decision.
As for how the settlement talks were going, Handley said that “a work in progress” was the best way to describe it.
“It’s difficult. We’re talking about entrenched and opposing interests on the side of industry. We’re talking about even the conservation sector [having] very firm ideas about what the island closures should look like based on the scientific analyses that they have undertaken,” she said.
The State’s answering affidavit to the applicants’ applying affidavit appears with dichotomous views around whether the panel’s recommendation is implementable or whether further work is required.
State Attorney Dikeledi Molepo contends in the answering affidavit that further scientific studies and stakeholder engagements, as recommended by the International Review Panel, were ongoing, and the legal challenge disrupted this process.
Molepo also said that the minister acted within their legal mandate by considering the conservation of African penguins and the socioeconomic implications for the fishing industry.
The Biodiversity Law Centre’s Handley said, “Our argument is simply that there was sufficient information to make a decision, that we applied the trade-off mechanism and this is the delineation that it came out with. So it’s not necessary to do further work, the principles of precaution and best available science require the minister to have made a decision.”
With the recent uplisting of the species from “endangered” to “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List, they said that it had become even more important to raise awareness.
Read more: Seabird surgery and mad dash to save AP509, a critically endangered African penguin
This case is a first for South Africa, with conservation bodies taking the government and industry to court to try to prevent the extinction of a singular species, so this could set a precedent for future species on similar paths.
“We should keep an eye out for other species that could land up in the same scenario that we’re seeing now… One only needs to look at the South African red list and the IUCN red list to see how many species are actually facing the imminent threat of extinction,” Handley said
One of these species is Botha’s lark, South Africa’s most threatened terrestrial bird species, which faces extinction as early as 2025 with an estimated 340 individuals left in the wild in South Africa and a 90% decline in species over the past decade.
For a lot of these species, the drivers of their decline are anthropogenic causes – land use change, over-exploitation, pollution, and climate change.
“There certainly are many species that require this kind of intervention,” Handley said. DM
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge
The desire for equality must never exceed the demands of knowledge