Study Reveals 62,000 African Penguin Deaths from Food Shortages

A new study has revealed that severe food shortages led to the deaths of approximately 62,000 African penguins at two major breeding colonies off South Africa's west coast between 2004 and 2011, highlighting the dire threats facing the critically endangered species.

Researchers from South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and the University of Exeter analyzed monitoring data from Dassen Island and Robben Island, where populations once numbered around 34,000 breeding pairs combined. Their findings, published in the Ostrich Journal of African Ornithology, indicate that about 95 percent of the penguins that bred in 2004 failed to survive the eight-year period. The primary cause was starvation during the birds' annual moulting process, when they must stay on land for roughly 21 days to replace their waterproof feathers and cannot hunt for food.

African penguins rely heavily on sardines and anchovies for sustenance, building up fat reserves before moulting to survive the fasting period. "They are evolved to build up fat and then to fast whilst their body metabolises those reserves, and the protein in their muscles, to get them through moult," said Richard...