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.

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Interestingly, publicly available reports from Oceana, the largest fishing company in Africa, with their catch including a substantial proportion of the small pelagic fish fishing quota, reveal that their revenues climbed consistently since 2008, i.e. the beginning of fishing exclusion experiments around Dassen and Robben islands on the West Coast. Only a portion of the sardine catches are canned for human consumption, while the entirety of the anchovy catches is turned into fish meal and oil.

It is worth noting that experimental closures have not reduced the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) awarded to the industry. However, in the meantime, the stock of sardines has reached historically low levels for the past few years. This situation is highly concerning, not only for the predators surviving on these stocks but also, of course, for the sustainability of our fishing industry itself.

Therefore, rather than spreading doubts about the reasons behind the decline of African penguins in our country, it would be a lot more constructive, and indeed urgent, to focus on the commitment of the government to identify additional Marine Protected Areas for South Africa. Indeed, within the context of Operation Phakisa, 5% of our marine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) was to be under protection by 2019, which was achieved, but another 5% was to be identified by 2020, which is yet to be done.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are known to benefit marine ecosystems and species, including African Penguins, but also often to fisheries operating around them, even pelagic fisheries like tuna (Medoff et al. 2022, Science).

A large analysis of 22,403 peer-reviewed scientific publications on the impact of MPAs globally confirms the benefits of fully protected MPAs to biodiversity and to surrounding fishery catch and income, as well as on carbon sequestration (see Jacquemont et al. 2022, One Earth). Benefits are equally recognised in South Africa (see Kirkman et al. 2021, African Journal of Marine Science).

All other identified conservation measures for African Penguins have been adopted. Artificial nests have been installed on many colonies to provide shelter from heat waves to incubating adults or to chicks from storms and floods. Large rescue operations of eggs and chicks led by Sanccob are ongoing, with releases of over 7,800 chicks over the past 20 years into the wild.

Control measures of predation on land by gulls and at sea by seals have been put in place where necessary. Even a new colony has been initiated in De Hoop by BirdLife South Africa to attract breeding birds within an existing Marine Protected Area. Fishing exclusions around their colonies to reduce competition with fisheries are indeed the last tool left unused.

A proposal from a conservation consortium of several NGOs, including BirdLife South Africa, EWT and WWF was put on the minister’s table in 2021 for clearly defined fishing exclusion zones around the six main breeding colonies of African penguins. This proposal was based on over a decade of scientific monitoring of their foraging behaviour and habitat, and used international best practices to identify marine Important Bird Areas (see Soanes et al. 2016, Biol. Conserv.).

These areas include 90% of the at-sea habitat of 90% of the South African population of endangered African penguins. Their protection would represent an additional 3,383 km² to be protected, ie making a total 5.7% of our EEZ in MPAs.

Meaningful small steps towards the 10% of MPAs in the EEZ as planned by Operation Phakisa would also benefit non-breeding penguins (see Carpenter-Kling et al. 2022, Scientific Reports), rescued chicks released by rehabilitation centres, and other seabirds.

It would be particularly urgent for the population in Algoa Bay, currently critically endangered. This population is under further pressure of accrued risks of oil spills due to ship-to-ship bunkering, as well as high levels of underwater noise pollution from maritime traffic in the bay. MPAs are a haven for species and ecosystems. The survival of penguins depends on them. DM