Vanishing Penguins

A lone Emperor Penguin


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There were several million African penguins in the nineteenth century. In 1930 there were still over a million birds. In 2004 there were app. 60,000 breeding pairs but 30,000 have died since then.

One recent article attibutes most of that to the collapse of the fish population - and with some of the fish moving to other areas. The penguins keep to their nesting grounds. The number of plankton have gone down - some say due to global warming - and that would also be a factor. There have also been poisonous algae blooms, oil spills and the disruption of wildlife in general by human activities.

African West Coast Fish Crisis

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 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.

In Namibia, where sardine stocks appear to have collapsed, the situation is critical....Seals are reported to be starving..."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. The jelly fish have increased and they eat the fish eggs and larvae, which means fewer fish, and if there are no fish, the seabirds don't breed. I'm not sure if it's possible ever to reverse what's happened in Namibia. It looks as if, in the long-term, we're going to lose the whole lot, the birds and the fish - at least as an economically viable industry," Williams said.

Rob Crawford, ornithologist at Marine and Coastal Management, said the Namibian gannet and African penguin population had declined by 90 percent in the last 50 years...

Biologists baffled as millions of penguins vanish

Millions of the birds are disappearing in a "sinister and astonishing" phenomenon that is baffling biologists.

In just six years their numbers have fallen from 600,000 to 420,000 in the Falkland Islands - one of its few remaining strongholds - according to the latest survey by Falklands Conservation.

The decline equates to a drop of about 30 per cent, although the Falklands population is thought to have dipped by about 85 per cent since 1932, when there were more than 1.5 million birds...

"It's an astonishing decline, the populations have just crashed over the last few decades and we really don't know why. It's quite sinister, we have got millions of penguins just disappearing."

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Numbers of Penguins by species with information mostly gleaned from Pete & Barb's Penguin Pages. Most of the numbers seem to be estimates as of 2004.

Adelie penguins breed all round the Antarctic continent. The total breeding population is app. 2,500,000 pairs in 193 colonies. (David Ainley)

African penguins breed on the coast of South Africa and Namibia and on off shore islands. The total breeding population in 2004 was estimated as 58,636 pairs. (Now 45,000 ?)

Chinstraps breed on sub-Antarctic islands and on the Antarctic Peninsula. There are some 780 known chinstrap colonies. The total breeding population is app. 7,500,000 pairs.

Emperors breed on the fast ice all round the Antarctic continent. The total breeding population is app. 200,000 pairs.

Erect-crested penguins breed on 2 sub-Antarctic Islands south of New Zealand,  the Antipodes and Bounty Islands. App. 175,000 breeding pairs.

Fiordland penguins breed on the south west coast of South Island, New Zealand and on Stewart Island. App. 2,500 to 3,000 pairs. 

Galapagos penguins breed on the Galapagos Islands on the equator (and on the north coast of Isabela Island!). app. 1,000 pairs.

Gentoos breed on many sub-Antarctic Islands. The total breeding population is app. 300,000 pairs.

Humboldt penguins breed on the west coast of South America and on off shore islands. The total breeding population is app. 3,000 pairs.

King penguins breed in large colonies on many sub-Antarctic islands. Currently there are more than 80 known colonies. The total breeding population is app.1,000,000+ pairs.

Little penguins breed on the coasts of Southern Australia and Tasmania as well as in New Zealand and the Chatham Islands East of New Zealand. The total breeding population is app.  250,000 and 400,000 breeding pairs.

Macaroni penguins breed on sub-Antarctic Islands south of the Americas and Africa. The total breeding population is app. 6,000,000 pairs.

Magellanic penguins breed on the east and western coasts of Chile and Argentina in South America, and on off shore islands and in the Falkland Islands. The total population is app. 1,000,000+ breeding pairs. 

Rockhoppers breed on more or less every sub-Antarctic Island. There are major colonies on the Falkland Islands (E. c. chrysocome - 420,000 pairs on 12 islands), Macquarie Island, Marion and Prince Edward Islands and Kerguelen Island (E. c. filholi - 800,000? pairs on 8 islands). E. c. moseleyi (350,000 pairs on 2 island groups) breed in smaller colonies on Tristan da Cunha, Gough and Amsterdam Islands.

Royal penguins breed only on Macquarie Island. The breeding population is app. 75,000 to 160,000 pairs and is decreasing.

Snares penguins only breed on Snares Island to the south of New Zealand. Currently the breeding population is estimated at 23,350 pairs.

Yellow-eyed penguins breed on the East coast of New Zealand's South Island and on sub-Antarctic Islands to the south of New Zealand, notably Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands. There are app. 1,200 to 2,000 breeding pairs.