NEO MADITLA
Staff Reporter
PLASTIC bags and declining fish stocks have been highlighted as the two biggest challenges for our oceans on World Oceans Day today.
Hayley McLellan, an animal behaviourist at Cape Town’s Two Oceans Aquarium, said plastic was a serious threat because animals and birds often mistook it for food.
She said most at risk were African penguins, pelicans and turtles.
The aquarium has started a “Penguin Promises” campaign to encourage the public to help save the threatened African penguin.
McLellan explained that the aquarium had joined forces with the Animal Keepers Association of Africa, which chooses an endangered animal each year on which to focus. This year it was the African penguin.
McLellan, who works with the penguin population at the aquarium, said people did not realise the effect plastic bags had on animals at sea.
The campaign also encouraged people to support the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (Sassi), help with coastal clean-ups, and make a pact to support at least one environmental day every year.
Dr Samantha Petersen, manager at the World Wildlife Fund’s responsible fisheries and Sassi programme, said the organisation was working to raise awareness, not only among consumers but among commercial fisheries.
Its SMS campaign encouraged consumers to SMS the name of the fish they were considering eating. They then received a reply informing them of whether or not the fish was endangered.
“Fish listed as green are the best choice. Fish on the orange list means people have reason to worry, while fish on the red list are either unsustainably produced, or endangered.”
Petersen said penguin population numbers had declined by 90 percent since the 1900s when there were about two million African penguins.
She blamed pollution, climate change, threatened habitats, and changes in weather patterns.
“The penguins mainly eat small fish that live in the open ocean. They also breed very slowly and are not able to repopulate very quickly. That is why oil spills also have a big impact on population numbers,” Petersen said.
She explained that this was one of the reasons the organisation was working with commercial fisheries and the government to not only enforce quotas on how much fish could be taken out of the sea, “but on how much fish we need to leave in the sea to sustain the ecosystem”.
McLellan said people needed to rethink their use of plastic bags, as well as other “single-use plastic products”, such as straws.
“Turtles see plastic bags as jelly fish and eat them, which can lead to strangulation and cause the animal to starve because it thinks it is full.”
She explained that there was an increasing number of seals and penguins at the harbour getting trapped by the plastic material used to bind boxes.
McLellan explained that the African penguin population was important because it was endemic to our coastline, and that penguins, like frogs, were an important indicator species.
This meant their numbers pointed to wider problems in the oceans, such as over-fishing.
“When the penguin population decreases, it would appear they don’t have enough food. This shows fish stocks are declining because of problems such as over-fishing to support the growing human population.”
McLellan echoed that the African penguin population number stood at between five and ten percent of its historic size. “We used to have about 1.5 million African penguins. There are about 50 000 left.”
The African penguins were classified as endangered, with scientists predicting their extinction in the next 15 years.
“Since they can’t thrive anywhere else in the world, once they are gone, they are gone forever. But with enough of us putting our heads together, we can do something,” McLellan said.
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For more information on Penguin Promises, see http://penguinpromises.com. See www.wwfsassi.co.za to find out more about Sassi.