Last week over 60 penguins died from bee stings. But this ‘freak’ occurrence, that’s caught international attention, highlights a more serious issue of dwindling African penguin colonies that conservation groups say is primarily caused by limited prey availability.
Last week, rangers found over 60 penguins dead on Middle Beach, at the Boulders Penguin Colony. The penguins were killed from bee stings, after a swarm of Cape honey bees attacked them.
Dr Katrin Ludynia, research manager at South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) told Our Burning Planet that the penguins were most likely attacked on their commute between the sea and their nest.
Ludynia said, “the message that we would like to get across, is that this was a freak accident. We are not worried about bees attacking African penguins. We kind of want to draw attention to the fact that 1,000s of these birds [die] every year due to other reasons.”
Sanccob said that the main threats to African penguins was the lack of food, the competition with industrial fisheries over limited resources, increasing shipping traffic, oil spills, pollution, climate change, extreme weather events, disease, predation and others, not bees.
Last Friday Rangers found the penguins…