Photo: J Paterson
Key challenge
The reason for the declining sea-bird population is mostly due to a lack of good quality food, especially sardine. The food resource has collapsed primarily due to over-fishing and a failure to let collapsed fish stocks recover. Seabirds such as African Penguins, Cape Gannets and Cape Cormorants are excellent indicators of the health of the marine ecosystem, and their rapid population decline clearly shows that not all is well with our marine ecosystem.
What do we want to do?
- Extend the 3-year moratorium on sardine fishing.
- Aerial surveys of Cape Gannets and Cape Cormorants during their peak breeding seasons.
- Regular (preferably monthly) island censuses of African Penguins and other seabirds such as Bank Cormorants.
- Collected data needs to be carefully vetted, collated and in the public domain.
