Aug 6, 2026 · 31 min · 10 segments
In this episode, Christina Hagen shares her journey into conservation, focusing on the plight of African penguins, their ecological importance, threats they face, and innovative conservation…
Christina HagenGuestD Blackx LesalonHostThe numbers are alarming currently, and, uh, we are losing a lot of them to a few threats, which I would like for us to highlight, uh, why the populations are declining very dramatically over, over the last century.
From your perspective, Christina, uh, what are the biggest drivers behind this decline, and why has recovery been so difficult over the years?
Um, there are some historical ones, um, such as egg collecting for human consumption, and then also guano collecting, so that's, um, seabird, uh, feces that were collected for, uh, fertilizer.
Um, thankfully that has stopped, or that stopped in the 1970s, but that's what caused the, the really big decrease from, you know, over a million pairs to, um, a few hundred thousand.
There, there's always the threat of oil spills, um, that can affect the penguins.
Um, there is predation, which is a, although it's a natural, uh, factor, it, um, has more of an impact when the population gets smaller.
There's also expanding sort of marine industries like shipping and, um, y- which causes underwater noise pollution.
But the biggest driver, the biggest threat to the penguins currently is a lack of available food.
So African penguins eat mainly sardine and anchovy, which are these small schooling fish, and, uh, they ...
It's quite a complicated topic, and that's why it's been hard to help them, help the penguins recover, because the s- the fish abundance is driven largely by, um, environmental factors, and so climate change is having an impact on where the fish can spawn and where they're found.
But also there is a very big industrial f- commercial fishing industry on sardine and anchovy, and that causes competition between, or there is competition then between the penguins and, and the fishery.
There's so many factors out of our control, so it's hard to, to manage the fish availability in a way that we can improve it for penguins, and sort of changing the fisheries management is the one thing that we can control.
The numbers are alarming currently, and, uh, we are losing a lot of them to a few threats, which I would like for us to highlight, uh, why the populations are declining very dramatically over, over the last century.
From your perspective, Christina, uh, what are the biggest drivers behind this decline, and why has recovery been so difficult over the years?
Um, there are some historical ones, um, such as egg collecting for human consumption, and then also guano collecting, so that's, um, seabird, uh, feces that were collected for, uh, fertilizer.
Um, thankfully that has stopped, or that stopped in the 1970s, but that's what caused the, the really big decrease from, you know, over a million pairs to, um, a few hundred thousand.
There, there's always the threat of oil spills, um, that can affect the penguins.
Um, there is predation, which is a, although it's a natural, uh, factor, it, um, has more of an impact when the population gets smaller.
There's also expanding sort of marine industries like shipping and, um, y- which causes underwater noise pollution.
But the biggest driver, the biggest threat to the penguins currently is a lack of available food.
So African penguins eat mainly sardine and anchovy, which are these small schooling fish, and, uh, they ...
It's quite a complicated topic, and that's why it's been hard to help them, help the penguins recover, because the s- the fish abundance is driven largely by, um, environmental factors, and so climate change is having an impact on where the fish can spawn and where they're found.
But also there is a very big industrial f- commercial fishing industry on sardine and anchovy, and that causes competition between, or there is competition then between the penguins and, and the fishery.
There's so many factors out of our control, so it's hard to, to manage the fish availability in a way that we can improve it for penguins, and sort of changing the fisheries management is the one thing that we can control.
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