Some 2,000 penguins washed up dead on the eastern shores of Uruguay In the last ten days, without registering cases of avian influenza, reported the authorities, who monitor the phenomenon.
The person in charge of Fauna Area of the Ministry of the Environment, Carmen Leizagoyenexplained that it is Magellanic penguinsmostly juveniles, which died in the Atlantic and were carried by currents to beaches in the departments of Cannelloni, Maldonado and Rocha, border with Brazil. “This is carnage in the water, in a 90% are young specimens who arrive without reserves of fat and with empty stomachs,” he said, stressing that all the samples taken have tested negative for avian influenza.
Magellanic penguins nest in southern Argentina. In the southern winter, they migrate north in search of food and warmer waters, even reaching the coast of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. “It is normal that some percentage die, but not these numbers”pointed out Leizagoyen, and recalled that something similar happened last year in Brazil, for reasons not yet determined.
The expert said that is not confirmed reduction of the colonies of this species in Argentina, which is where the copies can be counted. “There is a population that remains stable and another in northern Patagonia that would be slightly diminished, but it would not correspond to a massive mortality,” according to Leizagoyen.
Hector Caymarisdirector of the protected area Rocha Lagoon, commented that he counted more than 500 dead specimens of these birds in 10 kilometers of the Atlantic coast of that area. “Every year penguins come out, but never like this one,” he said.
A wake-up call?
Environmental advocates attribute the rise in Magellanic penguin deaths to the overfishing and illegal fishing. “From the 1990s and 2000s we began to see animals with a lack of food, the resource is overexploited,” he said. Richard Treasureof the NGO SOS Marine Fauna Rescue.
He added that a extratropical cyclone in the Atlantic, that hit southeastern Brazil in mid-July probably caused weaker animals to die from harsh weather. Tesore explained that, in addition to the penguins, these days he also found dead petrels, albatrosses, gulls, sea turtles and sea lions on the beaches of Maldonado.
For his part, Rodrigo García, director of Ambiente de Rocha and Latin American coordinator of the World Cetacean Alliance (WCA), called for the creation of marine protected areas. “The penguin shows us the tip of the iceberg of a very serious situation who lives the entire Southwest Atlantic with illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing,” he said.
Source: Ambito
