Dylan Bettencourt
Scientists in South Africa are installing a weighbridge in an attempt to fight the declining African penguin population.
The weighbridge will track the difference in weight when the penguin goes out to sea and returns. It will also be able to tell how long they were hunting for which will indicate how scarce food is for the animal.
BirdLife South Africa revealed they are installing a real-time penguin foraging data collection system. The system includes a remote weighbridge to determine how successful penguin hunting is out at sea.
“The main issue is their prey supply and other threats at sea. People go to a colony at Stony
Point or Boulders, and they don’t get information of what’s driving that population,” Alistair McInnes, Seabird Conservation Programme Manager for BirdLife SA said, as per Business Insider.
McInnes added that something needs to be done for the animal on the brink of extinction.
“African penguins are currently endangered. They are heading towards being critically endangered on their current trajectory. We need to act soon and get the focus out there where it’s needed,” he said.
Some of the required answers will come from the weighbridge as it tracks and transmits data from any penguin that crosses it.
Over the last three decades the population of African penguins has decreased by 73% from 42,500 breeding pairs in 1991 to just 10,400 pairs last year, according to The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds.
Other solutions to the population issue have been using penguin decoys and playing penguin breeding sounds in the hopes of sparking reproduction amongst the animals.
With the weighbridge scientists will be able to get a better understanding of penguin colonies, even being able to track a specific bird.
“The biggest limitation of the population’s current decline is availability of their prey. African penguins are specialised foragers. They predominantly feed on anchovy and sardine.
“That resource is currently under a lot of pressure both naturally in terms of the shifts and the distribution of those fish but also with resource competition with the largest fishery industry in South Africa,” McInnes added.
Image source: @tourHQ
