African Penguins generally breed on islands where they are safe from terrestrial, mammalian predators. Due to a shift in the distribution of their favoured prey, there is now a mismatch between penguin breeding islands and the fish distribution. Most penguin colonies are on the west coast of South Africa, while the fish have shifted south and eastwards onto the Agulhas Bank. There is a 600 km stretch of coastline between Dyer Island (near Gansbaai) and Gqeberha where there are no islands, and therefore no breeding penguins, but higher fish abundance.
BirdLife South Africa, with our partners CapeNature and SANCCOB, has made enormous progress towards re-establishing a colony in the De Hoop Nature Reserve, along the southern Cape coast, with penguins breeding there since 2022 and up to 20 individuals per year moulting there. BirdLife South Africa is also looking into the feasibility of establishing additional new colonies to help the penguins follow the changed distribution of fish.
