Penguins: friend or foe?

In my last post, I talked about the conservation aspect of Capetonian sustainable development and discussed the implied goal of maintaining biodiversity. As a follow up to that, I thought I'd look at how some of the associated issues are playing out in the midst of a recent conservation-slash-tourism-development effort at Boulders Beach. I'm going to go ahead and let you in on the punch line right now: maintaining biodiversity is more complicated than it seems.

Boulders Beach, a small coastal area just south of Cape Town, is home to a colony of African Penguins [formerly known as "Jackass Penguins"]. These penguins are quite well known, at least locally; their habitat is a lively tourist destination lined with a boardwalk and ma rked with descriptive signs - penguin icons, life-cycle flow charts, and prose describing relevant biological facts.

During my visit to Boulders Beach the other day, there were two signs in particular that caught my eye.

The first is located at the entrance to the site; it is one of the first things you see when you enter the area. This sign lists [among other things] penguin "threats and predators." The predators listed include fur seals, sharks, gulls, and "land animals;" the threats are listed as "reduction of penguin food supply by commercial fishing," "pollution at sea [oil]," "viral disease," and "habitat destruction." This last evil is represented by an image of a small building, presumably a [human] house. Additionally, listed below are two "former" threats/predators [it is unclear which category they fall into]: "guano collection" and "egg collection."

The sign's message is pretty clear: human interference is a threat to the penguin's livelihood; their [our] actions are not predatory, but rather, something closer to "viral disease." There is some degree of optimism, however, since presumably the "former" threats of guano and egg collection are no longer terrorizing the local penguin community. Okay, this is not really anything new. We've heard this message before.

The second sign, however, depicted a very different message. Located on the boardwalk near the exit this sign bore the following warning "Penguins negatively affect the younger vegetation through direct trampling and by removing soft foliage for nesting material. Excessive trampling and vegetation removal can lead to gaps in the vegetation and soil erosion." For clarification, there were a series of pictograms illustrating this claim.

In response to this penguin-induced environmental destruction, the good people at Boulders Beach have invented a penguin management system to deal with this aforementioned unfortunate occurrence. The system - fencing off vegetation "exclusion areas" in a way that is reminiscent of rotational grazing - is also depicted via pictograms on the sign.

The message here is also clear: the penguins at Boulders Beach are, through their irresponsible trampling, contributing to the destruction of indigenous vegetation; it is up to us [humans] to intervene on behalf of the local flora, in order to save nature from itself.

Presumably, if humans had not ruined so much of the penguins' habitat, perhaps they would roam more freely and trample less destructively, but apparently we are beyond this point.

I must admit, I left Boulders Beach a little confused about where I, as a human, stood in the great penguin debate vis a vis the preservation of local biodiversity: ironically positioned as both evil-doer and savior.