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62,000 African Penguins Starving to Death Highlights Humanity-Driven Extinction Crisis
"If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive," said one researcher, "it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing."
Dec 05, 2025
A study published this week about tens of thousands of starving African penguins is highlighting what scientists warn is the planet's sixth mass extinction event, driven by human activity, and efforts to save as many species as possible.
Researchers from the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE), the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, and other institutions examined a pair of breeding colonies north of Cape Town, South Africa, and published their findings Thursday in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology.
"These two sites are two of the most important breeding colonies historically—holding around 25,000 (Dassen) and around 9,000 (Robben) breeding pairs in the early 2000s. As such, they are also the locations of long-term monitoring programs," said study co-author Azwianewi Makhado from the DFFE in a statement.
As the study explains: "African Penguins moult annually, coming ashore and fasting for 21 days, when they shed and replace all their feathers. Failure to fatten sufficiently to moult, or to regain condition afterwards, results in death."
The team found that "between 2004 and 2011, the sardine stock off west South Africa was consistently below 25% of its peak abundance, and this appears to have caused severe food shortage for African penguins, leading to an estimated loss of about 62,000 breeding individuals," said co-author and Exeter associate professor Richard Sherley.
The paper notes that "although some adults moulted at a colony to the southeast, where food may have been more plentiful, much of the mortality likely resulted from failure of birds to fatten sufficiently to moult. The fishery exploitation rate of sardines west of Cape Agulhas was consistently above 20% between 2005 and 2010."
Sherley said that "high sardine exploitation rates—that briefly reached 80% in 2006—in a period when sardine was declining because of environmental changes likely worsened penguin mortality."
Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels is warming ocean water and impacting how salty it is. For the penguins' prey, said Sherley, "changes in the temperature and salinity of the spawning areas off the west and south coasts of South Africa made spawning in the historically important west coast spawning areas less successful, and spawning off the south coast more successful."
The researcher also stressed that "these declines are mirrored elsewhere," pointing out that the species' global population has dropped nearly 80% in the last three decades. With fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left, the African penguin was uplisted to "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species last year.
Sherley told Mongabay at the time that the IUCN update "highlights a much bigger problem with the health of our environment."
"Despite being well-known and studied, these penguins are still facing extinction, showing just how severe the damage to our ecosystems has become," he said. "If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive, it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing. We need to act now—not just for penguins, but to protect the broader biodiversity that is crucial for the planet's future."
Looks like the combined effects of climate change and over fishing are key factors in decimating the populations of these penguins.www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
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— Margot Hodson (@margothodson.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Fearful that the iconic penguin species could be extinct within a decade, the conservation organizations BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) last year pursued a first-of-its-kind legal battle in the country, resulting in a settlement with the commercial fishing sector and DFFE.
The settlement, reached just days before a planned court hearing this past March, led to no-go zones for the commercial anchovy and sardine fishing vessels around six penguin breeding colonies: Stony Point, as well as Bird, Dassen, Dyer, Robben, and St. Croix islands.
"The threats facing the African penguin are complex and ongoing—and the order itself requires monitoring, enforcement, and continued cooperation from industry and the government processes which monitor and allocate sardine and anchovy populations for commercial purposes," Nicky Stander, head of conservation at SANCCOB, said in March.
The study also acknowledges hopes that "the revised closures—which will operate year-round until at least 2033—will decrease mortality of African penguins and improve their breeding success at the six colonies around which they have been implemented."
"However," it adds, "in the face of the ongoing impact of climate change on the abundance and distribution of their key prey, other interventions are likely to be needed."
Lorien Pichegru, a marine biology professor at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University who was not involved in the study, called the findings "extremely concerning" and warned the Guardian that the low fish numbers require urgent action "not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks."
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Canadian Man Accuses US Coast Guard of Capsizing His Boat and Jailing Him on Bogus Illegal Fishing Claims
"We treat our pets better than they treated him," said the Canadian man's wife.
Jul 24, 2025
A Canadian man is accusing the United States Coast Guard of capsizing his boat and illegally detaining him on bogus claims that he was fishing in American waters.
CTV News reported Wednesday that 60-year-old Edouard Lallemand of Quebec says he was fishing near Venise-en-Québec, which is a little less than 10 miles from the U.S. border, when a U.S. Coast Guard boat approached him and asked him to turn off his boat's engine.
After he complied with this request, Lallemand told CTV News, the Coast Guard members informed him that he was fishing illegally in U.S. waters despite the fact that he had fished in that exact same location for years and had never encountered any problems. Lallemand insisted he was in Canada and then started his engine and indicated to the Coast Guard officials that he would be happy to talk with them further on shore.
However, the Coast Guard vessel followed Lallemand's boat closely and seemed to be trying to push it toward U.S. waters, which he said caused it to capsize. Even after he fell into the water, Lallemand said, the Coast Guard members seemed more concerned about securing his boat than helping him out.
"They're tying my boat to their boat," he said. "They're not even taking care of me. The third time I went down, coming out with water in my mouth, spitting it out, I said throw me a buoy."
The Coast Guard members pulled him out onto their boat and proceeded to handcuff him and place him in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who brought him to a detention facility, where they fingerprinted him and locked him in a cell.
"I said are you arresting me? No sir you're detained," he explained to CTV. "I said detained for what? I said you aggressed me. I didn't do nothing to you guys, I didn't even hit you guys."
He was released from detention after two hours and returned to Canada. However, he said his experience was bad enough that it should be a warning to fellow Canadian boaters.
"I want the people to know and to be aware: Stay away from the border," he said. "Even if it's 500, 600 feet from there."
Lallemand's wife, Darlene Fielding, told CTV she was "flabbergasted" at the treatment her husband received at the hands of the Coast Guard.
"We treat our pets better than they treated him," she said.
In a statement given to CTV, the Coast Guard acknowledged capsizing Lallemand's boat but insisted that he was to blame.
"While the Coast Guard's 29-foot response boat... was alongside the vessel, the operator put the vessel in motion and ignored commands to maintain course and speed for boarding purposes," the Coast Guard said. "The vessel then made an abrupt starboard turn and struck the port bow of the Coast Guard small-boat... approximately 65 yards south of the U.S./Canadian border. The collision caused the vessel to capsize, putting the operator in the water."
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President Biden: Make Your LNG Pause Permanent to Save Gulf Fishing Families
It’s up to the administration to prevent export terminals from destroying what’s left of Louisiana’s seafood industry.
Jun 07, 2024
In January, the White House announced a pause on liquefied natural gas terminals, called “LNGs” in industry jargon. Though it ruffled feathers in the oil and gas industry, the “pause” did little to stop their ongoing operations; it just meant that the federal government was taking a break from approving new export terminals—facilities that have yet to be built. For those of us who make a living fishing and shrimping here on the Gulf of Mexico, the pause has made little visible difference.
Our coastline and fisheries are already littered with gas export terminals. To build the plants—each larger than a football stadium—the industry digs up wetlands and pours concrete, destroying estuaries, fishing grounds, and the coast that protects us from storms. To make room for massive supertankers, the gas export industry digs up and dredges the shallows near shore, which has destroyed the habitats of Louisiana oysters and shrimp. My fellow fishermen and I are forced out of the way when supertankers cut through our fishing grounds. We have to pull up our nets, and we lose at least half a day’s work.
Every part of the operation is disruptive and destructive to our trade. Where we used to be able to pull up enough shrimp to bring to market, the dredging and shipping is so disruptive to aquatic life, it barely leaves enough shrimp behind for us to feed ourselves and our families. It’s not just the industry’s disruptions to our work though; it’s their outright attack on Louisiana’s fishing community.
My fellow fishermen and I are doing our part to hold the LNG companies accountable... But we cannot and should not have to fight this Goliath alone.
Last month, I witnessed a tanker barging through our local waters where shrimpers and fishermen usually put in. The ship whipped past us fishermen at such a speed that it caused a wake taller than the nearby boats. One of them—the one closest to the tanker—was sunk completely by wake, costing the fishermen who own it an untold sum and threatening the lives of everyone on board. To this day, none of us have heard of the tanker’s owner reaching out with an apology or an offer of compensation.
A couple of weeks after that boat was sunk, I went down to the dock to start my day, only to find my own boat sinking in shallow water. That morning and the night before, we hadn’t had any rain. My boat did not have any leaks. Yet somehow, on a clear day, my seaworthy vessel was almost completely submerged.
I’ll never know exactly how this happened to my boat, or who may have caused it to happen, but what I do know is that this industry has created an air of fear and intimidation. What I can say with certainty is that the more the industry encroaches on our fishing grounds, and the more that local fishermen like me speak out, the more accidents seem to happen.
I’ve lost thousands of dollars because of the industry’s actions—and that doesn’t include lost income from the depleted stocks of fish and shrimp, or from the lost days of work. One time, a tanker came through with skimmers in the water near shore, causing a sucking action that pulled in water from every direction. I watched helplessly as the vessel pulled the entire aluminum frame for my fishing nets, crumpling it like paper. To get it repaired, I had to take a day off work, drive nearly 200 miles round trip, and spend thousands on aluminum welding.
Another time, an LNG dredger was parked near our dock. The suction from the dredge almost caused me to capsize and lose everything. When I told the dredge operator what had just happened, he yelled at me, “Ain’t my effin’ problem.”
He didn’t say “effin.’”
That’s been the attitude of the LNG export industry since they’ve come here. They’ve taken our homes, our fisheries, and our livelihoods, and treated us like we’re just a nuisance standing in their way.
My fellow fishermen and I are doing our part to hold the LNG companies accountable. We’re tracking these assaults and keeping records of the decline in our fish, shrimp, and oyster catches. But we cannot and should not have to fight this Goliath alone.
This administration must make its pause on LNG export approvals permanent and direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to stop rubber-stamping permits for new terminals. It’s up to them to prevent this industry from destroying what’s left of Louisiana’s seafood industry, a cornerstone of culinary culture in America. We need President Joe Biden to see reason and save the Gulf’s fishing families.
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