After the day’s earlier stops we made our way down to Boulders National Park to see the colony of endangered land-based colony of African Penguins, one of only a few in the world. There are three beaches, three boardwalks, and this viewing area. It doesn’t seem enough, but it is a lot. We had a limited amount of time there and it seemed like not enough. As lovely as the rest of the day has been, I found I wanted less of that, and more of this.
The first full census in 1956 counted some 150,000 breeding pairs counted. Half a century later, the number was down to just 26,000 breeding pairs left in the world. This colony was established by the birds in 1983, and in over the next few decades the breeding numbers here increased, but have dipped this century because of habitat destruction from pollution, oil spills, overfishing, and global warming.
These are now the rarest species of penguin. The numbers have dipped so precipitously that we’re now in the projected window of their extinction.
These are the only penguins in Africa and Asia. They weigh up to seven pounds. pink patches above the eyes and the black mask are distinctive. The little spots on the white chest are said to be helpful for identification.
The African penguin’s coloring is called countershading, where the bird is darker on the upper side of the body and lighter on the underside. It’s about camouflage against predators and prey. They make loud braying noises.
These are pursuit divers, meaning they swim at the fish rather than dive at them. They don’t dive at them because they, of course, don’t fly. They feed primarily on fish and squid.
Experts are vying to close broader ares to fishing, meant to help with the birds breeding. South Africa decided to go another way, but lawsuits followed, and the government holds a constitutional obligation to prevent extinction of an endangered species.
Last year, the government reached a settlement established a set of larger and full-time no-fishing zones around six key breeding areas. Maybe that will help.
When they’re out looking for food, the penguins wive up to 82 feet, staying submered for more than a minute. The maximum recorded dive was 430 feet, and the longest was for over four minutes. It is not clear, to me, if those were the same dives. Or if that was an issue of the foraging. Because the fish around them have changed, fewer sardines, their diet is also changing. Now they’re eating more anchovies. Not ideal, perhaps, because of the mass and the nutrients and the subsequent downstream impact on their breeding.
These are monogamous birds, and the pairs return to this same site each year. The breeding season around here is from March to May, when a pair of eggs are laid. Both parents take turns with the incubation, which lasts for about 40 days. They’re guarded by one of them for about a month, and then they get sent to bird day care, hanging out with other chicks while ma and pa are foraging in the sea.
The average lifespan ranges between 10 to 25 years. In captivity they have lived to 34 years. They have predators on land and see. They seem to do better when they can breed in burrows or nest boxes, because they’re better shielded from land predators.
Because they don’t need a very cold enviroment, African penguins are a commonly seen species in zoos across the world, often kept in outside enclosures. They’re also pretty adaptive and tend to breed comparatively well in captivity.
The general conservation plan seems to be to create a backup captive population, while also aiding in conservation in the wild. (So breeding improvements, more protected areas around the colonies, etc.)
And so we’ll end with this, in one three-year period during the teens, American zoos put more than a quarter of a million dollars into in-the-wild conservation.
Let’s keep that up. The little chick that this penguin is looking after could use all the help it can get.
