Threats to African Penguins & Penguin Conservation

[Lisbeth]

How strange

[Richprins]

Honey bees blamed for deaths of 65 penguins at Boulders Beach

By Nomalanga Tshuma

Cape Town - The discovery of 65 dead African penguins, believed to have been attacked by a swarm of Cape honey bees inside the Boulders African penguin colony in Simon’s Town, has come as a blow to conservationists.

Despite a preliminary investigation into the incident which showed that the penguins died after being stung by the bees, a team of specialist veterinarians and advisers from the South African National Parks (SANParks), the City and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) will continue to probe the deaths to rule out any other causes.

SANParks spokesperson Lauren Clayton said: “On Friday morning, September 17, 63 African penguins were found dead inside the Boulders African penguin colony in Simon’s Town. Another dead penguin was also found on Fish Hoek beach on Saturday.

“We believe that the deaths occurred suddenly sometime between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. SANParks officials, expert advisers from the City, and veterinarians from Sanccob have been investigating the tragic incident.

“A preliminary investigation suggests that the penguins died because of being stung by a swarm of Cape honey bees, and no external physical injuries were observed on any of the birds. The team will continue their investigation to rule out any other potential causes,” said Clayton.




Sanccob veterinarian David Roberts said that while it was unusual for the penguins to mix with the Cape honey bees, it's not unusual for the bees to be defensive if they felt under threat.

Roberts said there might have been a disturbance in Simon’s Town or garden in the area that led to the bees reacting in the manner they did and attacking the penguins.

He said: “There has never been an incident such as this one so it’s not a usual occurrence. While the Cape honey bees are indigenous to the area because of the fynbos, the penguins and bees do not interact at all. Something must have happened to trigger such a response from the bees and lead to this tragedy.

“We believe the birds died from the toxins derived from the bee stings because birds are not like other mammals and are more susceptible to the poison. Some of the birds had more than 20 stings on their bodies, which caused massive organ failure.

“The penguins were probably stung all at the same time because most of them were found in the same area, however some were found a little bit later in different areas.”

Roberts said that following the incident penguin rangers have been keeping an eye out for the penguins and also conducted a thorough check-up of the remaining penguin colony to ensure that there aren’t any injured birds.

“This was such a tragedy. The African penguins are in danger of being extinct, that is why this is such a tragedy. To lose 63 adult, healthy penguins like this is terrible because every penguin counts at this point. This was a major blow to the colony,” said Roberts.

SANParks marine biologist Dr Alison Kock said the organisation was grateful to its conservation partners, who came on board to respond to the situation timeously.

She said: “We are grateful to all our conservation partners, especially Sanccob and the City of Cape Town, for assisting us in investigating this unusual event. No more dead African penguins were found on site today, and we will continue to monitor the situation."

nomalanga.tshuma@inl.co.za

Cape Argus

https://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/news/ho ... ed8dbff99a

[Lisbeth]

It has even been posted in my local Swiss newspaper.

[Lisbeth]

Penguins killed by bees highlights a deeper conservation issue

By Julia Evans• 24 September 2021


Over 60 penguins were found dead at Boulder’s Penguin Colony in Simon’s Town after they were attacked by a swarm of bees. (Photo: Sanccob)

Last week over 60 penguins died from bee stings. But this ‘freak’ occurrence, that’s caught international attention, highlights a more serious issue of dwindling African penguin colonies that conservation groups say is primarily caused by limited prey availability.

Last week, rangers found over 60 penguins dead on Middle Beach, at the Boulders Penguin Colony. The penguins were killed from bee stings, after a swarm of Cape honey bees attacked them.

Dr Katrin Ludynia, research manager at South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) told Our Burning Planet that the penguins were most likely attacked on their commute between the sea and their nest.

Ludynia said, “the message that we would like to get across, is that this was a freak accident. We are not worried about bees attacking African penguins. We kind of want to draw attention to the fact that 1,000s of these birds [die] every year due to other reasons.”

Sanccob said that the main threats to African penguins was the lack of food, the competition with industrial fisheries over limited resources, increasing shipping traffic, oil spills, pollution, climate change, extreme weather events, disease, predation and others, not bees.


Last Friday Rangers found the penguins on Middle Beach, which is part of Boulder’s Penguin Colony, and brought them to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds facility. Nicole Kieswetter, research intern at SANCCOB examines one of the penguins (Photo: Sanccob)

This was not a regular occurrence. Looking back at their records, Sanccob found only two occurrences of bee stings in the past 20 years, and they were individual cases (one penguin being stung and dying).

Ludynia said that the fact that the species is so endangered is what makes the death of the 60 birds so much more tragic than if there was a healthy African penguin population.

“But we are now down to about 10,000 breeding pairs in the entire South Africa. And that’s why it’s tragic. We actually need to focus on the real issues that are threatening to African penguins. The bees are definitely not on the radar.”

Sanccob said that over the past 20 years South Africa has lost over 40,000 breeding pairs.

The African penguin made the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species in 2010, classifying them as endangered. Ludynia said during the assessment to make it on this Red List, it was calculated that in the past 30 years, the penguin population has declined by 73%.

Dr David Roberts, clinical veterinarian at Sanccob said that most of the stings were found around the “little patches above their eyes, where there are no feathers, red, pink patches of skin.”

The reason that they died from the stings, Roberts said, is that birds are more susceptible per kilogram to bee toxins. “They’ve been some incidents of other birds in the poultry, as well as some wild birds. So I think the most important thing is that they’re small animals, and they got a lot of stings.”

Kai Hichert, chairman of the Southerns Beekeeping Association and board member of the South African Bee Industry Organisation (Sabio), explained to OBP, “we’ve only got two honey bee species in South Africa, one is the Apis mellifera scutellata, which is the African bee, the ‘killer bee’, and the other is the Apis mellifera capensis, which is the Cape honeybee. The African bee is much more aggressive than the Cape bee. However, the Cape bee is no joke either. When those girls get pissed off they get pissed off. And that’s obviously what happened. And it starts a chain reaction.

“If you just stand in front of the flight path of the bees, you’re not supposed to be there. So they accidently fly into you, because you’re not supposed to be there, then they start buzzing you, or they accidentally sting you. Once that first sting has gone in the other bees smell that venom, venom has got a very distinct smell to it. The other bees will keep on attacking the same spot where the previous bee has actually stung.”

Alison Kock, a marine biologist from SANParks, said they are working on the assumption that a beehive in the area was disturbed, causing a mass of bees to flee the nest, swarm and become defensive.

Kock said, “Cape honey bees are naturally found in the region and usually coexist with wildlife, and the penguins. They are an integral component of the ecosystem. They live in nests throughout the region and usually don’t sting unless provoked.

“Unfortunately the bees encountered a group of penguins on their flight path. We don’t know the origin of the bees that stung the penguins or what could have disturbed them as rangers would have recorded their presence during their regular patrols.”

Kock added, “Following the incident we did an extensive site assessment and found dead Cape honey bees on site. We also subsequently found a small colony of bees close to the site. These bees have subsequently been moved to a safe place away from the penguin colony inside the protected area of the Table Mountain National Park.”

What will happen to their breeding partners

There’s a common conception that penguins mate for life.

“They breed for life as humans do,” said Ludynia smiling, “so we do have pairs that stick together for 20 years or so. They usually split up early in their lives, if their first breeding attempt is not successful, then they will try to find another partner. Once they’re actually successfully breeding with a partner, they usually stick together.”

Ludynia explains that during the breeding season (which is historically from March and August but has now extended throughout the whole year due to a lack of prey availability and climate change), both the female and male partners alternate duties.

So while one partner stays at the nest to either incubate their eggs or look after their chicks, the other partner goes out to sea to hunt for fish (some of which are brought back to feed the chicks).

“But then once a partner dies, it often takes basically a year or two before the other partner might find a new partner,” says Ludynia. “So in that sense, yes, we are losing very valuable breeding pairs because the ones that have now lost their partner might not find a new partner next year.”

“So basically, there are 120 birds affected – 60 that died and the other 60 there are now basically having to raise their chicks and eggs on their own.”


Over 60 penguins were found dead at Boulder’s Penguin Colony in Simon’s Town after they were attacked by a swarm of bees. Bees die after releasing their stings (Photo: Sanccob)

Ludynia added that Sanccob has its rangers monitoring the situation. If they find eggs or chicks that are abandoned or struggling to grow (because they only have one parent to feed and rear), they will bring them into the rehab centre to hand-rear them.

On average, Sanccob’s Western Cape branch takes in about 1,000 African penguins and about 1,000 other sea birds. Ludynia points out that they used to admit 1,500 African penguins and that this decrease is an indicator of how the species is decreasing.

Roberts said, “I think it’s always important when talking about these apex predators like the penguins, that they’re an indicator that the ecosystem is in trouble. So I’d like to point that out. Penguin numbers are going down, they’re on top of the food chain. So I’d love to have little placards that say save the sardines, because if the sardine gets saved then a lot of other animals would benefit from it, all the other seabirds that are endangered.”

Ludynia wants the takeaway message of this incident to be that, “we have to manage the threat that we can manage, so the population can basically deal with these fluke events.

“It’s the same with oil spills, you know. If the population is healthy, losing a few 100 birds to oiling is tragic, but it wouldn’t kill the population. Whereas right now, if you had an oil spill, that could be the end of the species.” DM/OBP

[Sprocky]

Sad story.

[Lisbeth]

Unregulated tourist interaction with African penguins in Simon’s Town a concern for researchers


Tourists photograph African penguins at Boulders penguin colony in Simon’s Town, Cape Town, South Africa, on 27 September 2016. (Photo: EPA / NIC BOTHMA)

By Victoria O’Regan | 15 Nov 2021

Researchers and local residents have raised concerns about visitors getting too close to the endangered African penguins that roam freely around Simon’s Town on the Cape peninsula.
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If the hordes of tourists who descend every December on Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town are not conspicuous enough, their selfie-taking poses make them nearly impossible to miss.

A quick search on Instagram using the geotag “Boulders Beach penguin colony” reveals the vanity and sheer chutzpah of those determined to get themselves into the frame with an endangered African penguin. In many of these posts, visitors are very close to the birds – some are even reaching out as if to pet a penguin. Anything for the ’gram, right? Wrong!

Researchers and locals alike have raised concerns about the largely unregulated interaction with these wild animals, particularly over their moulting period which is also peak tourist season: November to January.

During this time, the birds stay ashore for up to 21 days to shed and regrow their protective feathers. This is when the birds are “more susceptible to disturbance, as they can’t access the water to escape as they are not waterproof at that time”, Dr Katrin Ludynia, research manager at the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) told Our Burning Planet.

“Losing all their feathers and producing new ones while fasting for three weeks is a stressful time for the penguins. Having large numbers of tourists approaching during this time of the year adds to the stress,” Ludynia said.

The Boulders section of the Table Mountain National Park – about two hectares in size – was getting around 950,000 visitors a year pre-Covid, said SANParks regional communication manager Lauren Howard-Clayton.

While Howard-Clayton was unable to indicate how much foot traffic the park receives from November to January, she noted an increase in visitor numbers at “busier times of the year, including the festive period”.


A tourist photographs an African penguin at Boulders penguin colony in Simon’s Town, Cape Town, South Africa, on 27 September 2016. (Photo: EPA / NIC BOTHMA)

The ‘cuteness factor’

According to Ludynia, the problem of people getting too close to these wild birds is an issue throughout the year, but is particularly noticeable over the peak holiday season.

“I think in most cases, it’s not done with bad intentions. It’s just people being curious. They’re a cute species, you know?” she said.

Ludynia blamed the selfie phenomenon and social media hype where people feel compelled to get up close and personal with wildlife.

“There is this idea that you can’t have been to Boulders if you don’t have a selfie of yourself sitting next to a penguin,” she said.

Echoing Ludynia’s remarks, local Simon’s Town resident, Lynda Silk, said the harassment diminished “since the tourists have been away, but you will see it again soon if you observe”.

Despite SANParks’ Code of Behaviour for Boulders Beach, prohibiting the “use of selfie sticks through fences and near penguins”, Silk said she has “seen people using selfie sticks to get close-up pictures of the penguins”, and has heard stories from people who have witnessed visitors poking and prodding the penguins with selfie sticks, while trying to get close-up shots.

Silk said she has also often seen children chasing the birds. “They mostly are simply excited to see the penguins and want to get close to them. Movies, especially the animated ones, give children a fondness for, but unrealistic understanding of, penguins. They don’t understand they are frightening the penguins when they get too close,” she said.

In response to questions about the proximity of humans to penguins in the park, Howard-Clayton said, “The welfare of African Penguins is an ongoing concern to SANParks. We encourage visitors not to approach the penguins, try to touch them or take selfies with them. They are wild animals and should be afforded space to move around the colony uninhibited.”

Something else Silk has observed is people unintentionally blocking the birds’ regular routes to and from the sea, causing them to get stressed.

“A couple of weeks ago, a grey juvenile broke a leg as people moved towards it. At that point, it tried to scurry back and fell into a deep ditch in between rocks,” said Silk, who arrived after the penguin had been injured.

“Penguins are not big in their expressions –they don’t yelp or roar. Their signals of fear or threat are often misunderstood,” she added.

Ludynia said a typical sign that a penguin is stressed is when it starts tilting its head to one side. “This is a sign that you’re too close.” Other signs are when they get up off their nests or start running, she said.


A typical sign that an African penguin is stressed is when it tilts it head to one side. (Photo: Sanccob)

Penguin-friendly surroundings

The Simon’s Town penguin colony, consisting of around 1,000 breeding pairs, is not confined within the park boundaries, and many pairs breed in the urban environment surrounding the reserve, said Ludynia.

City of Cape Town signage in the area surrounding the Boulders Beach section of the park indicates that people should keep a three-metre distance from the penguins at all times.

“We rely on people’s common sense and responsibility to maintain a respectful distance from the penguins. However, as the penguins move through these areas that are frequented by members of the public, it is often difficult to maintain that distance at all times. These areas outside the National Park are popular public beaches and are very busy during the season,” said City spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo.

Anyone found to be maliciously harassing a penguin could be fined or even prosecuted in terms of the Threatened or Protected Species Regulations, added Tyhalibongo.

Both Silk and Ludynia said the area surrounding the Boulders Beach section of the Table Mountain National Park is not penguin-friendly.

“We do have some problems with locals and their dogs. There are clear rules of dogs having to be on leashes, but that’s not always the case,” said Ludynia.

According to Tyhalibongo, dogs are not permitted on Seaforth Beach or Waters Edge Beach.

“They are, however, permitted down Kleintuin Road, along Willis Walk through to Burghers Walk, Windmill beach and Franks Bay, as long as they are kept on a leash and stay on the walkways or paths at all times.”

Traffic is another hazard faced by the penguins.

“We saw more penguin road kills during lockdown – it seemed like, because there was no traffic, people felt they could speed,” said Ludynia.

The City, together with Sanccob, have four penguin rangers who monitor the area outside the reserve throughout the year.

Tyhalibongo said the rangers – as well as contracted security staff who patrol the area – let people know when they are not complying with regulations or are harassing the penguins.

According to Ludynia, there is a need for more surveillance and monitoring inside the Boulders section of the reserve during peak season.

Monitoring inside the park is not the role of Sanccob’s rangers, said Ludynia. “They do the monitoring inside the park, but they’re not there to patrol on the SANParks boardwalks inside the park,” she said.

There are six SANParks rangers who monitor inside the reserve, and “there are more rangers deployed during the busier times of the year, including the festive period,” according to SANParks’ Howard-Clayton.

In addition to this, Howard-Clayton said there are also limitations on the number of visitors allowed on Boulders Beach, which are “determined by national Covid levels as well as tides in terms of beach space and availability, and are monitored by managers on duty and controlled via the access points to Boulders”.

A safe environment

The African penguin made the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species in 2010, classifying them as endangered. A population decline of 50% in 30 years warrants the species’ placement on this list, said Ludynia.

Researchers have seen an even greater decline in recent years.

“This year, we have the lowest-ever recorded penguin population. We have held that record for the last few years. But every year it gets worse,” said Ludynia.

The African penguin is moving swiftly towards critically endangered status. In 2019, a census revealed that there were about 13,200 African penguin breeding pairs in South Africa, said Ludynia. In 2021, there are only about 10,300 breeding pairs left.

“If this trend continues, the African penguin will reach critically endangered status relatively soon,” Ludynia said.

Despite concerns of humans interacting inappropriately with the penguins, Ludynia said the Simon’s Town colony is the only one in South African that is “relatively stable”, whereas “all other colonies are declining dramatically”.

Unlike other African penguin colonies, the Simon’s Town colony is not in competition with fisheries because False Bay is closed to small pelagic fisheries – undeniably the main reason behind the colony’s relative stability, said Ludynia.

However, because the colony extends beyond the reserve, it remains important to “create a safer breeding space for the species in the surrounding urban environment” to prevent population numbers from diminishing at a faster rate, said Ludynia. DM

[Lisbeth]

Penguins in crisis as sardine populations plummet


While the tourist-attracting penguin population in Simonstown is relatively stable, penguin colonies elsewhere on our coast are collapsing due to low numbers of sardines and anchovies, their main food source. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

By Steve Kretzmann | 23 Dec 2021

The penguins at Boulders Beach are a huge tourist drawcard, but these charismatic birds are in trouble because their main food source is under threat

African penguin populations are plummeting along with sardine stocks. As are Cape gannets and Cape cormorants, who also feed almost exclusively on the small pelagic fish. The penguins at Boulders Beach in Simonstown are safe as a tourist attraction, for now. The population has been relatively stable over the last five years but researchers believe overfishing is decimating colonies elsewhere along our coast.

Sardines, together with anchovies and red-eye round herring comprise 90% of our small pelagic fishes, and are the main food source for these endangered birds. But overfishing of already low populations of these fishes, which spawn on the Agulhas Bank off the southernmost tip of Africa and then develop up the west coast and along the south coast, is resulting in the loss of one African penguin colony every three years since 2004, and seven are currently “in trouble”, says Dr Lauren Waller, a research fellow at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob).

Speaking at a webinar on the sardine crisis hosted by the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies earlier this month, Waller said African penguin breeding populations had decreased by 73% over 30 years, from 42,500 breeding pairs in 1991 to 10,400 pairs in 2021.


The sardine run of southern Africa occurs from June through July when sardines – or more specifically the Southern African pilchard Sardinops sagax – spawn in the cool waters of the Agulhas Bank and move northward along the east coast of South Africa. Photo: Cormac McCreesh

This was part of a historical loss of over 95% of the African penguin population, listed as endangered.

Seabirds have to compete with fisheries for food

She said a “substantial amount of work” showed a close relationship between African penguin populations and their preferred prey. Beyond the biomass of these small pelagic fishes and that of penguins tracking very closely, penguins were also affected when what fish there are, move outside their foraging range.

With the small pelagic fish population of Namibian waters having collapsed to the point of their being a moratorium on sardine and anchovy fishing there since 2017, the African penguin colonies there have also “pretty much collapsed”.

When there are already low sardine and anchovy populations, penguins having to compete with fisheries has “that much more impact”, said Waller.

She said the government has been experimenting with alternating periods of banning sardine and anchovy fishing in the vicinity of Robben Island and Dassen Island up the west coast since 2008, with results revealing fisheries reduce the availability of prey for penguins.

Studies on closure of small pelagic fishing activity surrounding Bird Island and St Croix Island in Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape showed penguins had to travel much further to forage for prey when fishing took place in the vicinity.

This meant parents had to be away from the nest for longer periods of time, affecting chick survival rates.

Penguins also have a catastrophic moult every year, in which they replace all their feathers over three weeks. They cannot feed during this period and thus need to add 40% to their body weight in order to survive. Swimming further to find prey meant they struggled to accumulate the reserves necessary to survive the moult and still have enough energy to hunt successfully afterwards.


A typical sign that an African penguin is stressed is when it tilts it head to one side. (Photo: Sanccob)

Additionally, penguins hunt better in large groups, so as the number of penguins decline, their foraging efficiency decreases.

Sanccob research manager Dr Katrin Ludynia says as far as she knows, there has been no fishing for anchovy and sardine in False Bay using purse-seine nets since 1980, and the False Bay colony at Boulders Beach and Simon’s Town has remained relatively stable in recent years.


Seine netter sardine action. (Photo: Wanda Hennig)

The Simon’s Town population has fluctuated between about 800 and 1,000 breeding pairs for the last 10 years, having grown after the first pair waddled onto the rocks in the early ’80s, said Ludynia.

This was despite the Simon’s Town colony facing not only the same threats as other penguin colonies, such as climate crisis risks, disease, oil spills and noise pollution at sea, but additional mainland-based threats such as caracal (more than 100 penguins have been lost to a single caracal in a year), as well as dogs, cars and disturbance by humans. Yet, unlike other colonies, they are not threatened by lack of food in competition with fisheries, which indicates this is a significant driver of population declines elsewhere.

Waller said similar trends in relation to sardine and anchovy availability were observed with the endangered Cape gannet and Cape cormorant populations.

Waller said there were only three Cape gannet colonies left in the world: in Lambert’s Bay, Malgas, and Bird Island. The colonies in Namibia crashed along with their small pelagic fishery, as did colonies of Cape cormorant.

Taking more than our share

Speaking about the small pelagic fish (sardine, anchovy, red-eye round herring) populations, World Wildlife Foundation SA marine programme senior manager Craig Smith said the small pelagic species, 90% of which are sardine, anchovy, and red-eye round herring, sustain the largest fishery in South Africa. This is both by volume caught and jobs created through fishing and canneries. It is a R3.4-billion industry, with 5,800 employees, 75% of whom are full time, according to the South African Pelagic Fishing Industry Association.

Smith said while anchovies were predominantly reduced to fishmeal for the agricultural industry, sardines were canned for human consumption and were important as an affordable source of high-value protein for low-income households in South Africa and neighbouring countries.

He said the small pelagic fish also played an important ecological role as food for seabirds and other predators including sharks, whales, seals and other fish. As such, they were often used to gauge the health of the broader ecosystem.

He said small pelagic fish populations were closely monitored and total allowable catch (TAC) determined by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE).

Over the last 20 years, the peak TAC was in 2004 with close to 450,000 tons, but this had reduced year on year, with a TAC of 12,000 tons in 2019. This was a 97% reduction in 15 years.


Locals gather during the annual Sardine Run on Durban’s Addington Beach on 26 June 2021. (Photo: Gallo Images/Darren Stewart)

Normally, industry caught 100% of the TAC but had not been able to catch the full allocation since 2016. This was further evidence of a “problem with biomass level”.

There have also been shifts in distribution, with larger populations of sardine and anchovy now occurring along the south coast rather than the west coast, as was traditionally the case.

Smith said there were “some indications” this may be due to climate change, but overfishing along the west coast could also play a part.

Low sardine populations also meant the local small pelagic fishing industry was now mostly dependent on anchovy. A switch in fortune as sardine was the “high value” catch. As a result, more than 70% of sardine were now imported by canneries in order to keep their operations going.

Stark warning from Namibia

Smith said the Namibian situation was an important case study. It had a peak catch of 1,4 million tons of sardine in 1968 – three times that of South Africa’s 2004 peak – but the sardine stock crashed in 1970, resulting in a switch to anchovy. That also collapsed, leading to some canneries closing and jobs being lost. Scientists called for the closure of the Namibian small pelagic fishing industry in 1995, but were ignored. The last TAC in Namibia was 14,000 tons in 2017, with the industry having been closed since 2018.

“We need to take the lessons from Namibia to ensure our fisheries don’t follow the same route,” said Smith, with a resultant impact on other species, and our own food security and jobs.

Fisheries ecologist at DFFE Carl van der Lingen, who was invited to comment in the webinar, said small pelagic fish populations are known to have large fluctuations, for a variety of reasons.

Van der Lingen said there was a peak in the mid-’60s, after which populations declined to very low levels for “about 30 years” before rebuilding up to the catches seen in the early 2000s.

Presently the small pelagic fish population is designated as depleted, he said, but “these things are known for coming back from low levels”.

But he said when populations levels were low, the fish were of high nutritional quality as they competed less with each other for food. However, despite the depleted populations, the sardines have remained in poor nutritional quality. This was “surprising”, he said, and it meant reproduction levels were low. He said it suggested some underlying environmental cause.

The department was aware it needed to persuade industry to develop products for human consumption “out of our other resources”, and a factory on the south coast was now canning red-eye round herring. DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

Dwindling African penguin colonies – what needs to happen to restore the balance


African penguins.(Photo: Paula Bronstein / Getty Images)

By Tembile Sgqolana | 16 Jun 2022

African penguins are decreasing at an alarming rate in South Africa and the population resident on Algoa Bay’s St Croix Island is severely affected.
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A drastic decline in African penguin populations in the St Croix Island colony in Algoa Bay is sounding the alarm on the impact of human activity and climate change on the birds.

African penguins are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Professor Lorien Pichegru of the Coastal and Marine Research Institute at Nelson Mandela University has been conducting research for the past 15 years on the impacts of various anthropogenic threats to African penguins in Algoa Bay. She said that the Dassen Island colony, once the world’s largest African penguin colony, had collapsed by 90% in the mid-2000s, making the St Croix Island colony in Algoa Bay the world’s next largest colony.

“Now this one is collapsing too,” she said.

Pichegru said the reason that penguins are decreasing is due to a lack of prey and sustained large fishing pressure, especially on the West Coast as the fishing industry was mostly operating from Cape Town and St Helena Bay.

That and additional pressures on the St Croix colony contributed to its recent collapse in Algoa Bay.

“I conducted a population count on St Croix Island a few months ago on behalf of the Department of Forestry, Fishery, and the Environment, with the help of South African National Parks. We counted more than 1,000 breeding pairs, which makes for approximately 2,500 penguins, accounting for those that do not breed,” she said.

Pichegru said it corresponds to a 90% decrease from 10 years ago, while the Bird Island penguin colony halved during the same time.

“Penguins hardly ever move once they have started breeding on a colony. These penguins have died. I counted large numbers of dead adults on the beach along the Alexandria dune field as part of a long-term monitoring research I am conducting with a colleague from Bayworld, Dr Greg Hofmeyr. While African penguins from all over South Africa are decreasing at an alarming rate, so are Cape gannets and Cape cormorants, all three being endangered, all three depending on small pelagic fish, sardines and anchovies, as prey.

“The number of Cape gannets counted dead along the Alexandria dune field in Algoa Bay has also increased drastically,” said Pichegru.

She said the small pelagic fish stocks have dwindled recently due in part to climate change.

“We cannot change the climate to improve conditions for fish, to increase food availability for the seabirds. We can, however, stop fishing around their colonies. My research has proved repeatedly over the years the benefits of sardine fishing exclusion zones around penguin colonies for the breeding birds.

“It was confirmed on the West Coast colonies by colleagues of mine. However, no effective closures have been set in place to date for the past two years, despite the promises by the minister. These are urgently needed,” she said.


African penguins hardly ever move once they have started breeding on a colony. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Nic Bothma)

Pichegru said St Croix Island is particularly vulnerable due to its location in the lee of the bay, which limits the size of the foraging habitat of penguins.

“Changes in prey availability are felt much more rapidly by penguins breeding there. In addition, the proximity of two industrial harbours increases noise pollution levels in the penguins’ foraging habitat, and bunkering activities significantly increase the risks of oil spills, as shown by the four oil spills that occurred in the bay since 2016, since the initiation of ship-to-ship bunkering in the bay,” said Pichegru.

She said noise pollution is something scientists and the community only recently started acknowledging globally, and her latest research shows that noise levels in the bay have doubled since 2016, due to an increase in maritime traffic in the bay since the beginning of bunkering, affecting many levels of the ecosystems.

“Fish, invertebrates, birds and marine mammals use sound to communicate, find food, find mates, locate predators etc. Penguins are canaries in the coal mine, revealing the troubles underwater we cannot see. Noise mitigation measures will need to be set in place and discussions with South African Maritime Safety Authority are ongoing,” she said.

According to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds Eastern Cape and BirdLife South Africa websites, in 1910, an estimated 1,4 million African Penguins lived on Dassen Island alone. In the late 70s the estimated number was 222,000 birds. By the late 80s this was down to 194,000 birds, and by the early 90s to 179,000 birds. Two years ago, this number had dropped to approximately 47,000 birds.

Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa Algoa Bay branch chairperson Gary Koekemoer said the tragic irony is that at one time St Croix’s population was growing. In the mid-80s St Croix hosted 44,781 penguins and by the early 90s this had grown to 62,330 penguins.


A typical sign that an African penguin is stressed is when it tilts its head to one side. (Photo: Sanccob)

“Pelagic fish stocks in the area have been decimated by overfishing. Bunkering too is key. The one anchorage is adjacent to the islands and the Marine Protected Areas (MPA), so underwater noise and the regular oil spills impact the penguins greatly. Climate change has an incremental impact as sea temperatures change, reefs die off, weather patterns change and thereby food chains collapse,” said Koekemoer.

He said pelagic fishing and bunkering should be stopped.

“St Croix should be isolated from humans and these [measures] will undoubtedly help restore one of our Bay’s key indicator species. Is that feasible? Some say absolutely, we would be mad not to. Others say the opposite, we’re mad to think we can stop all sea-based economic activity and we shouldn’t as it puts food on tables.”

“Our Constitution and environmental laws enshrine the principle of sustainable development, the idea that any development (ie human activity) needs to balance economic, social, and environmental factors,” he said.

He said there is a need to do a proper environmental risk assessment and curtail fishing in close proximity to the colony.

“Move anchorages to a new spot that creates a buffer zone and move the shipping lanes. Strictly police the existing bunkering requirements. Put pressure on decision-makers and their institutions to get off their butts and do the things already agreed upon,” he said.

Koekemoer said they need to get bunkering operations and the companies who gain from using the bay to pay their tax like every other business, to fund proactive conservation and restoration initiatives.

Managing director of Enviro-Quest Ronelle Friend said the drastic fall in penguin numbers on the island occurred in the last five years, coinciding with the timing of ship-to-ship (STS) bunkering in the bay.

“STS bunkering started at the end of 2016 in the anchorage areas of the Coega Port. The anchorage 2 area is right next to St Croix Island and flush to the Addo Marine Protected Area boundary. The distance from where Umnenga II, the mothership, is anchored to St Croix Island is 2km,” she said

Pichegru adds: “As penguins are indicators of the ecosystem, their protection is likely to benefit other species in their habitat. Communication is key in conservation and dialogues between environmentalists and industries are crucial to move together towards a sustainable future.” DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

Creecy has new plan to halt rapid decline of African penguin


Rehabilitated penguins are released by the SA Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds at Derdesteun beach on 25 September 2012 in Cape Town. (Photo: Gallo Images / Nardus Engelbrecht)

By Tembile Sgqolana | 08 Aug 2022

A 2013 biodiversity management plan to save the endangered species has failed to arrest the population drop. Now, Environment Minister Barbara Creecy is seeking public comment on a fresh draft.
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African penguins once churned up the water in great numbers on South Africa’s west coast. Now they are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

And according to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), the species’ population has declined rapidly from more than a million breeding pairs in the 1920s to a record low of more than 10,400 pairs in 2021.

Owing to this decline, the African penguin, which is endemic to Namibia and South Africa, has been identified as one of three penguin species globally that are in critical need of conservation action.

According to Professor Lorien Pichegru of the Coastal and Marine Research Institute at Nelson Mandela University — who has been conducting research for the past 15 years on the impacts of various anthropogenic threats to African penguins in Algoa Bay — the Dassen Island colony, which was once the world’s largest African penguin colony, had collapsed by 90% in the mid-2000s, making the St Croix Island colony in Algoa Bay the next-largest, although that is collapsing too.

To arrest this, Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has released a draft African Penguin Biodiversity Management Plan (APBMP) and is calling for public comment.

A Biodiversity Management Plan for the African penguin was first gazetted in 2013, with the aim of halting the decline of its population in South Africa. According to the department, while many of the actions listed in the plan were implemented successfully, the BMP (2013) did not achieve its aim and populations continued to decline, albeit at a slower rate.

The new draft APBMP attributes the decline of the species to various factors including reduced availability of forage fish, oil spills, breeding habitat modification, extreme weather events and disease. Predation by Cape fur seals and kelp gulls has localised colony impacts.

The APBMP aims to improve the conservation status of the species, ensure that no extant colonies become extinct, maintain the socioeconomic benefit that African penguins generate and support iterative improvement in the knowledge base for adaptive management.

Food is the priority

The head of conservation at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), Nicky Stander, said the draft plan is an important framework for conserving the remaining populations.

“Sanccob is one of the organisations that formed the drafting team for both the first APBMP and subsequently the second draft version, collaborating with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, penguin colony management authorities, academia, research institutions, the fishing industry and other NGOs,” she said.

“Sanccob plays an important role in the conservation of endangered African penguins and is committed to supporting the government in implementing the critical actions outlined in the draft BMP. We will be submitting comments before 21 August 2022, reinforcing the urgent conservation interventions required to prevent further declines of the species.”

Stander said that, while the decline of the African penguin population has a long history, involving various threats, the priority intervention now is food security.

“African penguins depend on small pelagic fish, primarily sardine and anchovy, and the abundance of these fish has been shown to impact penguins’ breeding success and survival. The challenge lies where African penguins’ foraging areas overlap with commercial fisheries.

“Decisions to ensure sufficient food for African penguins (in fact all top predators in the Benguela Upwelling Ecosystem) thus need to take place at spatial and temporal scales that take their full life cycle into consideration.”

The new draft APBMP “has identified new and emerging threats, such as disease outbreaks, at-sea threats and anthropogenic impacts that require careful monitoring and mitigation measures”, she said.

Although the 2013 plan had not halted the species’ decline, actions listed in it “are ongoing, including improving food availability, predation management and marine pollution preparedness and response”.

‘Catastrophic collapse’

Algoa Bay Conservation environmental scientist Ronelle Friend said the plan should have been reviewed in 2018, and in the four years since, “St Croix Island lost 4,000 breeding pairs of African penguins” — an 80% drop.

“That is a catastrophic collapse of a colony! Were the plan in place in 2019, this collapse could possibly have been prevented, but maybe not.”

Friend said the 2013 APBMP was an utter failure.

“If the decline of the penguin population is the criteria to apply (which it should be) then with a 45% decline in penguin numbers in South Africa since the implementation of the plan, it shows that the plan was totally inadequate… why will the APBMP plan of 2022 be any different?” she asked.

Her concerns included:

• The deeply controversial closure of fishing zones around colonies;

• Failure to identify the dire situation on St Croix Island, where the colony has decreased by 84% in five years and is sliding on a steep path towards total collapse;

• The APBMP is very much generic and not risk-based, since the risks are not the same for all colonies. The start should be to determine the real and immediate risks that face individual colonies and address those;

• The influence of bunkering and marine traffic identified as catastrophic events — they are not catastrophic, but result in the continual exposure of African penguins to vessel movement, bunkering operations, and water and noise pollution;

• No provision is made for actioning on precautionary principle in case of marine industry development around colonies;

• Funding requirements are not addressed in the plan as several requirements need funding;

• No provision is made to engage with interested parties, such as the public.

Friend said that in 2021 the minister acknowledged there were legislative gaps in environmental law that allowed ship-to-ship bunkering in Algoa Bay, in close proximity to an endangered African penguin colony, without the need to perform any risk or impact assessment.

“Algoa Bay Conservation has tried to obtain the penguin breeding pair numbers for the islands in Algoa Bay for 2022 after the counting process was completed. Academia was not forthcoming with the information, Sanccob did not have the numbers, and the DFFE did not want to release the numbers to us. We had to complete a PAIA (Promotion of Access to Information Act) application and serve it on the DFFE. I am still waiting for the information,” she said. DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

“Algoa Bay Conservation has tried to obtain the penguin breeding pair numbers for the islands in Algoa Bay for 2022 after the counting process was completed. Academia was not forthcoming with the information, Sanccob did not have the numbers, and the DFFE did not want to release the numbers to us. We had to complete a PAIA (Promotion of Access to Information Act) application and serve it on the DFFE. I am still waiting for the information,”

How can they expect to get help from the public if there is no transparency?