Quantifying the projected impact of the South African sardine fishery on the Robben Island penguin colony

Research indicates that the South African sardine fishery is likely to have minimal impact on the African penguin colony at Robben Island, even when compared to scenarios without fishing. The study used a population dynamics model linking penguin adult mortality to local sardine biomass, fitted to moult counts and tagged penguin re-sightings. Findings suggest that rapid colony growth in the 1990s was driven by immigration rather than local survival improvements. Projections based on future sardine abundances under current fishery management procedures show that fishing's impact is overshadowed by uncertainties in sardine spatial distribution.

Robinson, W. M. L., Butterworth, D. S., & Plagányi, É. E. (2015). Quantifying the projected impact of the South African sardine fishery on the Robben Island penguin colony. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 72(6), 1822–1833. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsv035