World’s African Penguins are in Trouble

According to researchers, as the climate changes and fisheries transform the oceans, the world’s African penguins are in trouble.

According to them, young penguins aren’t able to take all the changes into account and are finding themselves “trapped” in parts of the sea that can no longer support them even as better options are available.

Study show that juvenile African penguins are stuck foraging for food in the wrong places due to fishing and climate change.

When the young of this endangered species leave the colony for the first time, they travel long distances, searching the ocean for certain signs that should mean they have found an area with lots of plankton and plenty of the fish that feed on it.

But rapid shifts caused by climate change and fishing mean these signs can now lead them to places where these fish, the penguins’ main prey, are scarce with impacts on their survival — a so-called ‘ecological trap.’

Protecting the penguins — and other species — from falling into similar ecological traps will require better action to account of the needs of predators in managing fisheries and concerted action to tackle climate change.