Cape Town - As the African penguin population declines, and with the species facing the risk of extinction, a pair of chicks spotted in a nest at the site of a new African penguin colony in the De Hoop Nature Reserve has sparked fresh hope for the conservation of the endangered species.
BirdLife South Africa, CapeNature and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) have been hard at work, even creating fake penguins to help re-establish a penguin colony in the De Hoop Nature Reserve to allow breeding penguins better access to moving fish stocks.
Christina Hagen, project leader at the Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation at BirdLife South Africa, said the penguins attempted to breed at De Hoop between 2003 and 2008 but because they were vulnerable to predation on land, they abandoned the site after a caracal killed a number of penguins there.
This project hoped to re-establish the colony and the sighting of these chicks marked a milestone in the project as it confirmed the first penguin pair at De Hoop successfully hatching and raising two chicks.
Sanccob said this was the first time in 15 years that there were African penguins in De Hoop; there have been none on record since 2008.
Hagen explained that African penguins only breed in colonies, and thus they had their work cut out for them to dupe these penguins into thinking that there was a colony at the nature reserve.
They enticed the penguins to breed by creating life-like penguin decoys with the help of a local Cape Town artist, Roelf Daling, and positioned them around the colony.
The team also installed a speaker to play penguin calls 24/7, and a predator-proof fence was also installed.
Sanccob research manager Katta Ludynia said the establishment of a new colony was a great step in the right direction, but it was not a solution to the problem of the African penguin being at risk of extinction.
“Food sources need to be secured for the species, and both on-land and at-sea protection must be secured to turn around the fate of the African penguin. South Africa’s sardine stocks are at a historical low, and all efforts must be made to improve fish availability,” Ludynia said.
Hagen said: “Creating new colonies is a long-term intervention. It will take time for the colony to grow to numbers where it might contribute meaningfully to the conservation of the species. But it’s important to start it now so we know that it can be done.”
The African penguin population decreased by over 60% in the last 30 years and the leading cause of the decrease is thought to be a lack of available prey (sardine and anchovy) caused by a shift in the distribution of fish and competition with the fishing industry.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za