The marine ecosystem off the West Coast has taken a severe knock with the disappearance of the sardine stocks - the major food source for thousands of seabirds - and the African penguin population has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.
In Namibia, where sardine stocks appear to have collapsed, the situation is critical, and ornithologists say the seabird populations are "going down the tubes". The Namibian gannet population has dropped to 90 percent of what it was 50 years ago, and the Namibian pilchard fishing industry has packed up for the season, unable to afford the cost of staying at sea without landing catches. Seals are reported to be starving on the Namibian coast.
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On South Africa's West Coast, seabirds appear to be surviving on bits of hake discarded at sea by fishing vessels. On Dassen Island, a nature reserve and major seabird breeding colony near Yzerfontein, only half the number of penguins have bred this year compared to last year, while at Bird Island off Lamberts Bay, where there are normally 2 000 pairs of breeding Cape cormorants, there is just one pair breeding on the island.
In the Western Cape overall, 20 000 African penguins have disappeared from the breeding colonies since 2004, and 10 000 have disappeared in Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape in the last three years.
'The seabird populations are going down the tubes' It appears that the sardine stocks have moved south which has had a knock-on effect not only on the ecosystem, but on the economy of the West Coast.
Tony Williams, ornithologist for CapeNature, said on Monday that there were only six islands in the world where gannets bred: Mercury, Ichabo and Possession Islands in Namibia, Malgas and Bird Island on the West Coast and Bird Island in Algoa Bay.
"In Namibia, the seabird populations are going down the tubes. The sardines appear to have been almost wiped out and the whole system appears to have changed.
'My hunch is that this is environmental change from a combination of factors'
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