Fishing exclusion zones are the right solution to save our critically endangered African penguins

It is unfortunate that Prof Doug Butterworth, emeritus maths professor from the University of Cape Town, in his article “Pichegru on penguins — the wrong solutions for a very serious problem” (Daily Maverick 26 October 2022) insists on misrepresenting the issue around African penguin conservation in the media.

African penguins are dying and urgent solutions need to be put in place, not further research without clear interventions. Fishing exclusion zones, or Marine Protected Areas, are indeed the right solution.

Many of us scientists have researched the reasons behind the decline of the penguins for over 20 years. These are well known to biologists, colony managers, government institutions, penguin rehabilitation centres and the community who are working towards African penguin conservation.

We have also researched the impacts of some of the solutions that have been put in place over time to address the various threats they are facing. When not optimum, we improved them and researched again.

This marathon effort is to ensure that effective, science-based conservation measures are put in place to conserve this iconic species. This work has been continuously published and peer-reviewed by the international scientific community, validating its scientific merit.

It is well known to the local and international scientific community that the main cause of the African penguins’ decline since the early 2000s is a lack of their main prey, sardine and anchovy (see Crawford et al 2006 or Crawford et al 2022 for the latest review).

It is also evident that purse-seine fishing exclusion zones around key African penguin colonies are benefitting these endangered birds. There is certainly no lack of rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific articles demonstrating this (see for the latest example Sydeman et al. 2021, ICES J Mar Sci).

While Prof Butterworth consistently criticises our publications, he himself, nor any member of his team, have never published any evidence to substantiate his claims that fishing exclusions would not benefit penguins, or would be costly to the industry. The modelled estimates on which he bases his assumptions have been substantively criticised by the very International Stock Assessment Review Panel he mentions, due to inadequate methodology.

No real data have been used to prove costs to fisheries of exclusion zones. These do exist, but are withheld by the industry, despite repeated requests from NGOs and scientists to understand the real socioeconomic cost of closures.