African penguins are now critically endangered, one official step from disappearing from the wild, and competition with fishing fleets explains why

First of 18 penguin species to reach the status

African penguins are now critically endangered, meaning the species is one official step from disappearing from the wild, and the reassessment behind that finding also explains why. On 28 October 2024, BirdLife International, the Red List Authority for birds, the group that ranks how at risk a bird species is, formalized a recommendation from the Penguin Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The change moved the African penguin up from endangered, a status it had held since 2010, to critically endangered, and made it the first penguin species, out of the 18 that exist worldwide, to reach that status. Natalie Maskell, chief executive officer of SANCCOB, the organization that runs penguin rescue and rehabilitation work in South Africa, source 2, said what the new status means for the species.

The IUCN uplisting to Critically Endangered means that the African Penguins are just one step away from becoming extinct in the wild.

Natalie Maskell, chief executive officer of SANCCOB. Source 2.

Why African penguins are critically endangered

The population behind that listing did not collapse suddenly. It fell from 141,000 breeding pairs in 1956 to 9,900 pairs in 2023, a 93% drop, according to IFAW and Mongabay. The bird eats small fish, mainly sardines and anchovies, and commercial fishing fleets compete with it for that same fish. Climate driven shifts have also moved those fish away from the coastline the birds can reach. In Algoa Bay on the South African coast, a newer pressure has added to the strain since 2016, ships transferring fuel to each other at sea, called ship to ship bunkering, which raised underwater noise roughly tenfold, source 4. Older damage still matters too. Historic harvesting of guano, seabird droppings once dug up and sold as fertilizer, stripped away the ground the birds used for nesting. Richard Sherley, an independent ecologist at the University of Exeter, quoted by Mongabay, source 3, said the scale of the decline shows how deep the damage runs.

Despite being well known and studied, these penguins are still facing extinction, showing just how severe the damage to our ecosystems has become.

Richard Sherley, an independent ecologist at the University of Exeter, quoted by Mongabay. Source 3.

Almost the whole species depends on 1 country

By July 2024, South Africa held an estimated 8,750 of the remaining breeding pairs and Namibia held 1,200, according to the July 2024 assessment reported by Mongabay, source 3. That puts about 88% of what is left in 1 country, so a change in South African fishing rules or shipping traffic can move the number for the entire species.

What conservationists are doing

The Penguin Specialist Group did more than recommend a new Red List status. In its own 2024 to 2025 report, the group states it sent its own letter to the South African government, pressing for fishing closures around breeding colonies critical to the species, source 1. Fishing closures have worked before at a smaller scale. A set of no take zones, areas closed to all fishing, ran for 11 years around 2 breeding islands from 2008 to 2019, and is credited with about a 1% rise in the population while it operated, source 4. That gain is small next to a 93% decline, but source 4 records it as the only conservation measure in this reporting with a stated before and after result. Without urgent government action, researchers project the African penguin could be extinct in the wild by 2035, source 4.