Basic HTML Version
104
UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
The Threat to Penguins
Research by the FitzPatrick Institute, in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Affairs, SANParks and the
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, revealed that relatively small no-fishing zones can be of great benefit to
breeding African Penguins (
Spheniscus demersus
)
,
which rely on highly mobile pelagic fish prey.
Research Project
African Penguins were upgraded to
Endangered
in
February 2010, following a 60% decrease of their
global population between 2001 and 2009, leaving
only 26000 pairs in the wild. The dramatic drop in
their numbers is attributed mainly to a lack of food,
after the distribution of anchovies and sardines shifted
500km eastwards. Purse-seine fisheries exploiting the
remaining pelagic fish stocks off the West Coast
increase this food shortage.
During 2009, Marine and Coastal Management, the
South African government agency responsible for
fisheries management, closed an area of 20 km in
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Lorien Pichegru replacing a penguin chick in its
nest on St Croix Island
radius to purse-seine fishing around the world’s largest
African Penguin colony at St Croix Island in Algoa Bay,
Eastern Cape.
After the fishing ban, penguins on St Croix spent
less time foraging for food and needed to spend less
energy each day looking for food. This showed the
immediate benefits of no-fishing zones for breeding
penguins, which seem to respond extremely rapidly
to concomitant changes in pelagic fish distribution.
Appropriately designed Marine Protected Areas
therefore benefit threatened top predators, even those
relying on mobile prey over a small area.