Penguins on the precipice: Survival within the ‘noisiest bay on this planet’ | Surroundings

The primary time I visited St Croix island, in 2017, it was residence to about 6,000 breeding pairs of African penguins – 35 % of the worldwide inhabitants of this endangered species.

On a blissful September morning, we sped throughout Algoa Bay on South Africa’s east coast, previous a dirty cargo ship and the bulging meringue that’s the Nelson Mandela Bay soccer stadium, earlier than stopping alongside St Croix. The boat rocked back and forth as waves broke towards the tiny, jagged outcrop that has wrecked many a ship over the centuries.

To the human eye, the rocky, sun-baked pinprick appeared a reasonably inhospitable place however birds clearly noticed issues in a different way. A waddling throng of knee-high penguins huddled above the high-water mark whereas, behind them, a lone gull perched on a reproduction of the cross erected by the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488.

As we rounded the island, the massive Ngqura Port and its floating gas stations got here into view. In 2017, the follow of ship-to-ship bunkering (refuelling at sea) had solely been going for one yr. Again then, the largest concern about bunkering was that it could lead to oil spills. Whereas there have been 4 spills – in 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2022 – a few of which killed penguins, the noise brought on by the bunkering actions is probably going much more devastating to the birds.

“In a bid to keep away from the noise, the penguins swim additional, to much less productive feeding grounds. This implies they will’t construct up sufficient reserves to outlive the moult, after they need to quick for 3 weeks,” explains Lorien Pichegru, an adjunct professor at Nelson Mandela College, who has been finding out the penguins on St Croix since 2008.

Since 2017, largely as a result of ship-to-ship bunkering, the variety of birds utilizing St Croix every season has dropped by 90 %. Put one other manner, within the years since then, St Croix has gone from being the world’s largest African penguin colony to being one of many smallest.

“The island appears utterly completely different today,” says Pichegru. “It’s not simply empty, it’s additionally coated with crops. Penguins use all types of fabric to make their nests, so on this naked rock island, crops had been luxurious they had been combating for. Now there aren’t any penguins and the crops have made a comeback.”

The answer is straightforward, says Pichegru: “Bunkering shouldn’t be allowed.” Ships use it to keep away from paying port charges and it supplies “an inexpensive refuelling loophole” which deprives the nation of tax cash and causes untold environmental injury.

The excellent news is that it isn’t too late to save lots of the St Croix colony. In October 2023, all three bunkering corporations had their licences suspended over tax irregularities. As quickly because the bunkering stopped, the penguins began coming again.

Within the 2023 breeding season, when bunkering was nonetheless in full swing, about 700 breeding pairs used the island. This yr, with bunkering on maintain, that quantity has virtually doubled to 1,350 breeding pairs.

However the moratorium is barely short-term. This February, the South African Maritime Security Authority (SAMSA) introduced that it could be processing new bunkering purposes “at once”.

Bunkering has not resumed but however the conservation group is already participating with the federal government a couple of authorized loophole that enables purposes to be “accepted with none environmental scrutiny of the dangers and impacts related to bunkering”, says Kate Handley, the manager director of the Biodiversity Legislation Centre.

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It isn’t simply St Croix – general, African penguins, the continent’s solely penguin species, are in a precarious place.

On the flip of the final century, between 1.5 million and three million birds roamed the coastlines of Namibia and South Africa. That quantity has plummeted to 9,900 breeding pairs – a 99 % decline in 120 years, says Alistair McInnes, who heads up the Seabird Conservation programme at BirdLife South Africa. On the present fee of decline, which is 7.9 % yearly, the African penguin will go extinct within the wild by 2035.

Bunkering isn’t the one cause for the penguins’ peril – however it’s arguably the best to deal with.

From the 1840s onwards, guano assortment for the fertiliser business had a devastating influence on seabird colonies the world over. Dyer Island, on South Africa’s east coast, was residence to greater than 1,000,000 African penguins who nested within the 4-6 metre (13.19 ft) layer of guano that coated the island. Now the guano is gone and simply 2,040 pairs used the island within the 2023 breeding season.

What’s extra, between 1920 and 1950, a style for penguin eggs (they had been served on the Titanic and in South Africa’s parliament) noticed roughly 48 % of African penguin eggs being eaten by people.

Extra not too long ago, overfishing – the penguins feed virtually completely on pelagic fish, like sardines and anchovies – and local weather change, which has led to habitat loss and made breeding more and more troublesome, have had a equally devastating influence on the birds. In 1999, there have been roughly 43,000 breeding pairs however by 2016, that quantity had dropped to 17,200.

Within the eight years since, the South African penguin inhabitants has greater than halved.

In a determined try to save lots of the species, BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB (a South African NGO centered on the safety of seabirds) has taken South Africa’s minister of forestry, fisheries and the atmosphere to court docket (PDF) for failing to implement biologically significant fishing closures about six penguin colonies (together with St Croix), that are residence to 76 % of the worldwide African penguin inhabitants.

The brand new atmosphere minister, who obtained the job after the ANC did not win an outright majority on this yr’s normal election, has signalled his intent to settle the case out of court docket and implement the closures.

The choice to petition the courts – which Handley stresses “was not taken calmly” – got here after the minister ignored a few of the key suggestions made by a global evaluation panel she appointed. The case will likely be heard within the Pretoria Excessive Court docket in October this yr.

Ecologically talking, says McInnes, “shedding the penguins could be a catastrophe as they’re an indicator species for your complete ecosystem”.

It might even be devastating for the South African tourism business: A 2018 research confirmed that the flagship colony at Cape City’s Boulders Seashore contributed 311 million rand ($17m) each year to the native financial system. Cape City stays the one metropolis on this planet the place penguins waddle the streets, however for a way lengthy?

Of their bid to stave off extinction, Pichegru, Handley and McInnes are leaving no stone unturned – and guaranteeing that bunkering by no means returns to Algoa Bay is a crucial a part of their technique.

Highlight on bunkering

Ship-to-ship bunkering permits massive ships to refuel at sea, thus avoiding the price and inconvenience of coming into port. Earlier than 2016, bunkering didn’t happen wherever alongside the South African shoreline. Since then, three licences have been granted in Algoa Bay, with some operations happening inside 10km (6.2 miles) of St Croix and on the coronary heart of a biodiversity hotspot. Along with being the bottlenose dolphin capital of the world, Algoa Bay is residence to endangered humpback dolphins and is a well-liked calving floor for a number of species of whale.

Pichegru factors out that “we can not make a direct causal hyperlink between bunkering and the lower of penguins” because the immense stress the St Croix colony is beneath prevents her from finishing up the research required to show the hyperlink incontrovertibly. However the proof for the prosecution is damning.

A 2017 research led by Pichegru proved that African penguins clearly keep away from noise generated by the seismic surveys – essentially the most intense man-made ocean noise on this planet – carried out by corporations prospecting for undersea oil and fuel deposits. By distancing themselves from the supply of noise, the penguins find yourself in unproductive waters, with restricted alternatives to seek out meals.

Pichegru’s 2022 paper estimated that the noise ranges within the foraging habitat of St Croix penguins have doubled since bunkering, which elevated maritime site visitors within the bay, started. As she writes, “Algoa Bay is now one of many noisiest bays on this planet.”

The one manner of proving conclusively that bunkering is the trigger for the St Croix penguins’ demise is to suit penguins with GPS trackers and correlate their actions with real-time noise readings from underwater hydrophones, that are at present recording near St Croix and Chook Island.

However the St Croix birds have at all times been very troublesome to work with – the island sees only a few guests so birds aren’t habituated to people, explains Pichegru, “and now that there are so few penguins left, we are able to’t put GPS on them.

“With the animals so burdened already it could solely make issues worse,” she provides. “As a scientist it is extremely irritating to not be capable of do my job.”

In the meantime, Handley and her authorized staff are centered on closing a authorized loophole that enables purposes for a bunkering license to be made with out an Environmental Influence Evaluation (EIA).

“Bunkering had by no means occurred in South Africa,” explains Handley, “So it wasn’t listed as a Listed Exercise [one that requires an EIA] when the regulation was promulgated.” She is hopeful the regulation will ultimately be modified to incorporate bunkering on the listing however she can be conscious this will take years – time that the St Croix penguins merely shouldn’t have.

There have been another authorized developments. Within the wake of the 2019 oil spill, a moratorium on new bunkering purposes was imposed, pending the completion of an Environmental Threat Evaluation (ERA) commissioned by Transnet, the state-owned firm accountable for ports, rails and pipelines. And in 2021, with the ERA nonetheless ongoing, SAMSA launched a Bunkering Code of Follow for public remark. This has undergone a number of revisions since, with the environmental safeguards progressively watered down with every new draft.

The ERA, whose suggestions aren’t legally binding, was ultimately printed for public suggestions in late 2023.

“We commented extensively, essentially expressing the priority that the ERA was insufficient,” says Handley, “However critically noting that regardless of inadequacies, primarily based on what seems within the ERA, bunkering shouldn’t be permitted in Algoa Bay.”

Handley has obtained little suggestions to her many letters – regardless of undertakings from the Division of Forestry, Fisheries and the Surroundings that bunkering is receiving their consideration. Publicly, SAMSA introduced, in February this yr that it could resume processing new bunkering purposes “at once”.

There aren’t any present authorized limitations to bunkering. Pichegru hopes that the tax points beforehand encountered by the bunkering operators deter future candidates, or that the brand new atmosphere minister intervenes as he did this yr by deciding to settle the fisheries lawsuit introduced by BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB.

And she or he nonetheless has some hope: “African penguins can bounce again,” she stresses. “Uniquely for seabirds, they will lay two clutches of two eggs per season. If we simply depart them be, they will come again.

“They don’t need to be extinct by 2035.”