In an effort to stabilise the declining population of African penguins, environment minister Barbara Creecy has announced the extension of last year’s temporary closure of commercial fishing around major penguin colonies until mid-April.
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This comes in order to combat the issue of resource competition between the penguins and fishing industry, thought to be the biggest threat to the species as levels of sardine stock in South African waters remained low.
The minister has also appointed an international expert review panel to provide advice. Further decisions on the matter will be made depending on the outcomes of the panel.
Meanwhile, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) welcomed the extension of the closures, as it urged Creecy to extend the closures until the international panel finalised its work.
Speaking to IOL, the foundation said that for a successful breeding season, the penguins were dependent on sufficient food throughout the entire year.
“Opening the areas to fishing in mid-April could be detrimental as birds may abandon their chicks if they do not find sufficient food later in the season,” said Sanccob research manager, Katta Ludynia. “We hope that the panel will support the need for long-term or permanent closures around the main African penguin breeding islands, based on the evidence that the conservation sector has supplied for over 12 years.”
Sanccob CEO Natalie Maskell added that they, together with conservation partners BirdLife South Africa, WWF South Africa, and the Endangered Wildlife Trust, have collaborated to highlight that island closures could help save endangered species.
Ludynia explained that the proposed closures covered very small areas of the South African exclusive economic zones and very small parts of the areas that commercial fisheries worked in.
In September, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) announced the temporary closure of some areas as a precautionary measure to ensure the survival of the species while balancing ecological and socio-economic interests.
According to Senior Manager of WWF South Africa’s Marine Programme, Craig Smith, the island closures presented an alternative to reduce the interaction between the fishing industry and the African penguins, but came too late last year as the penguin breeding season had already completed and the fishing industry had already caught most of its quotas for the year.
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Government closes some fishing areas around penguin colonies
Picture: Barrie Swart
