Conservationists race to save the African Penguin

 

South Africa

Sunday 8 September 2013 

 

Johannesburg, September 7 – Conservationists are racing against time to save a seabird that's found only in South Africa, from extinction. The number of African Penguin are dropping at a rapid rate. eNCA

Once there were more than one million breeding pairs, now only 3,900 are left.

The African Penguin population is dropping at a rapid rate.

Dr Ross Wanless, from BirdLife SA, said: "They don’t seem to be dying in large numbers during the breeding season. But adult survival is really low. So this appears to be the real crunch time."

The BirdLife team is on Dassen Island, a penguin colony north of Cape Town, to place satellite tracking devices on new parents.

"It’s the coolest tracking system, a tiny device weighing a couple of grams. At night when the bird is resting in the water, the device switches itself on, transmits signal to satellites, and we get the position of the bird," Wanless said.

Once there were more than one million breeding pairs in the area, now only 3,900 are left.
African Penguins are regarded as an early warning system for environmental threats.

"The African Penguin is a sentinel for the marine environment. It relies on very few species of fish, which are the base of the food chain. Everything else in the ecosystem depends on those fish as well.
So if the penguin is in trouble, it means the marine ecosystem is in trouble," Wanless said.
This in turn affects the entire economy.

"Fisheries alone contribute about 6 percent to our GDP. We cannot afford to lose that."

-eNCA
Video available at source