Simon's Town's African Penguins Face Underwater Blast Threat

The South African Navy's announcement of an underwater demolition training exercise set to take place between January 22 and February 1, 2024, near Seaforth in Simon’s Town has sparked widespread concern among residents and conservationists. The proximity of the exercise area to Boulders Beach, a well-known haven for the endangered African penguin, has raised alarm bells about the wellbeing of this dwindling species.

The African penguin, which features prominently on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red Data list of threatened species, has seen its numbers plunge from over a million breeding pairs a century ago to fewer than 10,000 today. This stark decline puts the species on a path to functional extinction, rendering it unable to sustain its population through reproduction.

Local conservation groups, such as the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob), are actively engaging with stakeholders to discuss the implications of the navy's planned activities on the Simon’s Town penguin colony. Nick Stander, head of Sanccob, highlighted ongoing bioacoustic research aimed at understanding how noise impacts seabirds both above and underwater.

Whereas the navy contends that the training is essential for divers to maintain readiness for potentially hostile scenarios, such as clearing harbor entrances from sea mines, there is a clamor for a detailed environmental impact assessment to gauge the potential harm to marine life. Despite the naval exercises being conducted in a designated demarcation area known as the “Shallow Water Demolitions Range Military Practice Area,” residents are skeptical about the adequacy of the navy's environmental compliance.

Community members like Simon’s Town resident Jenny Cullinan and area researcher Dr. Heidi-Jayne Hawkins have voiced their concerns about the exercises, calling attention to the absence of recent environmental studies that factor in current marine conditions and the cumulative threats to marine life.

Long-time resident and conservation advocate Lisa Garson, who has faced challenges in reporting naval activities as environmental crimes, emphasized the need to halt any operations that could potentially harm the African penguin colony until more is known about their susceptibility to activities like blasting.

Environmental groups are rallying for greater transparency and accountability in military operations, evidenced by a protest at Long Beach, Simon’s Town, led by Extinction Rebellion and supported by locals. Conservationists, including Helen Lockhart of the Two Oceans Aquarium, are shedding light on the extent to which ocean noise pollution affects marine life, from plankton to seabirds, necessitating cautionary management decisions.

Initiatives like the "Not On Our Watch Campaign" have emerged to raise awareness and prompt action to arrest the decline of the African penguin population in the wild, further underlining the tension between necessary military training and environmental stewardship.

In a rapidly changing global climate, with biodiversity at the brink, the tenuous situation in Simon’s Town is a clarion call for updated environmental risk assessments and a serious re-evaluation of decades-old practices that could exacerbate the threats to fragile ecosystems.