It is no secret that we humans get a lot of our food from the ocean, which at times can be very irresponsible. Certain species of fish has already seen a big decline in population numbers, and we will most likely have to face the fact that many species of fish will go extinct in the next few decades. It can be very difficult to regulate fishing, and in this post I am going to take a bit closer look at how small no-fishing zones next to breeding grounds for penguins has affected their survival rate.
African penguins. Image by Wikimedia Commons users Charlesjsharp, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The African penguin got no-fishing zones around their breeding islands
The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) is found on the southern coast of Africa, where it used to be very common. However, like a lot of other species the African penguin has faced many threats in the last decades, resulting in a big population decline. At this point they are considered Endangered by the IUCN, so there is cause for some concern.
87 % of the South African population is centered around just 8 different breeding colonies, each with their own island. There are about 19,300 breeding pairs in the country, as well as just over 5,700 in Namibia, leaving it at just about 25,000 breeding pairs in total. This is not really a lot for an entire species of penguins, and as mentioned above, they are currently facing a sharp decline in population numbers.
One thing that was done in order to try to help the African penguin thrive and rise in numbers again was to create small no-fishing zones in the areas around their breeding islands. The only problem was that no one really knew if this would even help, since the fish could easily just swim out of these small no-fishing zones. Yet they were tested out, and some of the breeding islands got a 20km sanctuary around them, so no fishing vessels were allowed to harvest forage fish within 20 kilometers of the islands.
20km might sound like a lot, but it’s not really that much for fish that are swimming constantly. Note that the ban was only on forage fish such as sardines and anchovies, which are key species for the endangered African penguin. These fish also serve a very important ecological function by eating small marine invertebrates and even plankton, and serves as a middle-man between piscivorous animals and these small organisms.
The amount of forage fish that are caught by fishermen seem to be rising each and every year, and some scientists believe this could have a big ecological consequence if we keep increasing this number. However, other believe that this is not really a problem, so there is a lot of debate about this.
The no-fishing zones improved the body condition and survival rate of the chicks
In order to find out if the no-fishing zones even had any effected, the scientists who worked on the experiment had to compare the survival rate and body condition of the chicks before and after the implementation of the sanctuary. What they found out was that it had without a doubt increased both of these factors in the year after the no-fishing zone was implemented, but also make sure to tell us that more data is needed before we can be absolutely sure that this has such a big effect.
Is it applicable to other species and areas?
This is of course the million dollar question. The paper shows that it did indeed increase both the body conditions and the survival rate of the young chicks that hatched in these protected no-fishing zones, but since this has not been tested anywhere else, we can’t say for certain that it is a good strategy for conserving penguins and other species who rely of forage fish to survive.
When making an experiment like this one, there are so many things that can interfere with the experiment, which means that it must be tested in other places during other conditions before we can assume that it’s universally applicable.
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave a comment below! If you want to learn more, then check out the paper that was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. If you want to learn more about the African penguin, then I suggest the IUCN page that I linked to earlier in the text. They are the one who are responsible for classifying its conservation status, and they have lots of details about the species in their justification for the endangered status it has been given.
I haven't seen this study about pingvins and their chickens before, but I have studied marine biology and have written a report on non fishing sones in the ocean, but this is like 20 years ago. So interesting to see that it helps :)
Kindest regards
@Gyldenhorn
Hi, @gyldenhorn. It's cool that you have written about this back in your school days :) Did you have the same conclusion with your report?
Yesterday I joking my friend about her penguin like appearance and now here I am reading your post about penguins.hahaha
Penguins are indeed very beautiful and smart. Its really encouraging to see conservation efforts being made to help them. All we can hope is to see more serious and coordinated efforts to help penguins.
The consequences of unimpeded human intervention in ecosystem are beyond comprehension.
People of dense populous with little resources country don't care about marine life. To earn their bread it's a normal thing. They don't know about the consequences of their act. It's government duty to make necessary arrangements for making no fish zone of 20 Km and other steps for conservation of penguin life. International Union for Conservation of Nature should help government financially to ensure better World for all of us. Thanks for providing awareness. Awareness is the best tool to improve this world. and steemit is definitely a big platform to motivate so many people all around the world. keep sharing @valth
Hey, @kamchore.
That's true, and no one can blame them. I agree with what you're saying that it is the governments and international co-operations should be the ones responsible to provide both protection for the animals, as well as food/resources that the locals might end up not getting directly once the wildlife protection area is in place.
True, but unfortunately both are not playing the active part. I think mostly governments are more culprits, they don't think about people and wild life Mostly they focus on their own interest.:(
Yeah, that's true. Most governments primarily have their economic growth in mind I think.
"survival rate of the chicks" this is funny haha
In all seriousness, the main reason why people don't care about all these animals is because it doesn't add any tangible value to their life. Do you have a way you can make people feel a bit more emphatic with animals?
I think a lot of people do care about animals even if they don't play a part in their lives, but they don't really think too much about it. When buying fish they don't really know that this will negative affect certain species in the ocean, and if they had known they might have chosen differently.
Sadly I don't have a great solution to this. Penguins should not be too difficult to get people to sympathize with naturally, because they have they subjective "cute factor" that is very important when getting money for saving species and protecting areas. It's a lot more difficult to convince people to save certain fish species, or even insect species.
So what you're saying is just creating awareness will help?
Sure, it does help to a certain extent. However, we do of course also need people who actually do the physical conservation, such as protecting the areas from poachers. But raising awareness, and especially raising money is very important as well.
There are several factors that contribute to the population decline of the African penguin, among them is the shortage of food produced by commercial fishing (African penguins consume squid, sardines, anchovies or crustaceans) and environmental fluctuations.
In addition to these, there are other factors such as the collection of eggs by humans, guano (excrement), oil spills, conflicts with sea lions and seals or fishing nets
Thanks for sharing. When,we humans leave the animals alone to do what they naturally do, they do far better. No research needed about it. Following, upvated and resteemed. Have a nice day.
Yeah, that's true, but we humans do exist pretty much everywhere on the planet, so there needs to be research on how to best coexist with them. Sure, we could always completely stop fishing in the ocean, but this would mean millions, perhaps even billions, of people that would starve. It's not really all that easy to just leave the animals alone.
Anyway, thanks for your comment and your resteem, @successforall!
Perhaps moderte and controlled fishing in the oceans can help, like you described in this post i.e. 20 km area of fishing embargo around the breeding places of endangered species.
I think these kind of steps should must be expanded to help other endangered species also.
Yep, I agree. We should also all be able to survive just fine while staying away from these areas that are of such importance for the endangered species as well. It's a nice compromise for both us humans as well as the animals in question.
Yeah indeed its a compromise. We as specie should learn to better share our home with others. But Alas! we humans are so self-obsessed.
We have to save species going to extinction
These are beauty of nature
Yeah, we absolutely do. It's easier said than done though.
that's good news. African penguins so beautifull, peoples should take care of animales
Yeah, I agree :) They are very pretty animals.
Yup! I think your subject is biology..
Yeah, it is :)
Good news! Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome.
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posting a great friend
Thank you.
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Have a nice time