Why Are African Penguins Endangered?

The African Penguin is turning into becoming endangered due to more than one motive. One fundamental cause is that there is overfishing where they live, and which means that they can locate food without problems because fish is their number one food. Those were two oil spills since 1990 which has oiled and killed 30,000 African Penguins.

Another purpose is the travelers have been getting near the penguins which have induced them to be scared to reproduce. 2000-2009 the African Penguin has been labeled as vulnerable. Then it moved to the endangered category in 2010 due to the reasons above and shifted in their prey population alongside the South African coast. If we do not do something now, these animals might become extinct.

African Penguin
African Penguin by Paul Mannix / CC BY

They need to use their intuition to comply with cues of their surroundings to discover food and live their month at the ocean hard as that can be in the past. As per the weather and high fishing pressure have made it even harder.

For penguins in Namibia and South Africa, abundant supplies of their favored prey, including sardine and anchovy, are no longer in which the Penguins hope to find them.

Namibia
Namibia by Bernard DUPONT / CC BY

African penguins are found endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as numbers along their entire range in Namibia and South Africa have dramatically decreased in the last century and tends to reduce more. Prey, including sardine and anchovy, are no longer in which the Penguins expect to locate them. In the past, there was a drop of about 80%, out of about 23000 breeding pairs of penguins in the world.

Endangered African penguins are living in a colony on Boulders Beach in South Africa an outbreak of avian flu has further threatened cape Town.

African Penguins are part of a family of aquatic birds, flightless who are wired for life in the water. African Penguin colonies spread from Namibia up to Port Elizabeth of South Africa.

In the ocean, however, they are adapted to swim at high speeds with impeccable grace and control. The African Penguin can dive underwater for up to two and a half minutes, hunting for small fish like sardines and anchovies that make up their staple diet.

A Final Word

An endangered species of African Penguin provides invaluable information to preserve and rehabilitate this seabird. Competition with oil spills, fisheries, climate change, diseases, and predators that are all contributing elements of their dramatic decline, which has been as excessive as 80 percent in some South African colonies.

Reference:

https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/International/endangered-african-penguins-threatened-avian-flu/story?id=54619266

https://esp8fchase.weebly.com/reason.html

http://theconversation.com/young-african-penguins-are-dying-because-they-cant-find-the-fish-they-need-72613

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