Penguins living on the Patagonian coast of South America face starvation just like their cartoon counterparts in the hit children’s film Happy Feet, only with no happy ending.

In the film trawlers steal all the fish from emperor penguins; in real life the expanding anchovy fishing industry in the Southern Ocean is cutting supplies of the Magellanic penguins’ main food. Scientists say that the commercial fishing will soon reach unsustainable levels and are urging strict quotas and conservation protection schemes to save the penguins.

Anchovies are a key fish in the food chain in the southern Atlantic and are taken by penguins, cormorants, terns, sea lions, dolphins and other fish species, all of which would suffer if stocks crashed. Argentine trawlers recorded catches of more than 30,000 tonnes of anchovies off Patagonia in 2004 and 2005, the biggest in more than 30 years, and there are plans to increase the harvest.

Zoologists at the University of Washington and Fundación Patagonia Natural in Argentina say today in the journal Science that uncontrolled fishing would be disastrous for wildlife in the region.

“The effect of a decrease in the anchovy population could spread through the food web,” they say. “Unsustainable anchovy harvest could disrupt ecosystem function, other fisheries and ecotourism.”

The ecotourism industry was worth £230 million to the Chubut province, in the southern part of Argentina, last year, with more than half of that associated with coastal wildlife.

Trawlers in the southwest Atlantic have nearly exhausted hake stocks, prompting the Argentine Government to declare a state of emergency for the species in 1999. At the time the fishing fleet had a capacity three times the size of the total allowable catch.

Anchovy fishing was identified as a potential alternative to hake and in 2003 Argentina’s Federal Fishing Council approved an experimental programme to expand the anchovy industry. Scientists are concerned, however, that while providing income for fishermen, the programme failed to research the effects on penguins and other wildlife, nor the sustainability of anchovy stocks.

Magellanic penguins are common along the Patagonian coast, including the 500,000-strong colony at Punta Tombo in the Chubut province; more than half their diet consists of anchovies.

The scientists called for strict quotas on anchovy catches to ensure penguins had enough.

Under threat

The Galapagos penguin is the most endangered, with only 1,200 remaining

Source: BirdLife International

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