Comment on FR Doc # E8-29673

By Regular and Electronic Mail February 17, 2009 Attn: FWS-R9-IA-2008-0069 Division of Policy and Directives Management U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222 Arlington, VA 22203 Re: Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding on a Petition to List Four Penguin Species as Threatened or Endangered Under the Endangered Species Act and Proposed Rule to List the Southern Rockhopper Penguin in the Campbell Plateau of Its Range Dear Sir or Madam, On behalf of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (“IFAW”), I am writing to submit comments on the 12-Month Finding on a Petition to List Four Penguin Species Under the Endangered Species Act, and Proposed Rule to List the Southern Rockhopper Penguin in the Campbell Plateau Portion of Its Range. See 73 Fed. Reg. 77264. IFAW, with over 1.2 million supporters worldwide, is one of the world’s preeminent international animal welfare organizations. IFAW works throughout the world to improve the welfare of wild and domestic animals by protecting wildlife habitats, reducing commercial exploitation and helping animals in distress. The African penguin currently breeds at 31 colonies located between Hollams Bird Island, Central Namibia, and Bird Island, Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. A 32nd colony at North Reef became extinct in 1988. As recognized by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) in this proposed listing, African penguins are threatened by a large number of factors including predation, climate change, oil spills and habitat modification and degradation. In 2005, the overall population of African penguins numbered about 63,000 pairs. For perspective, between the years 1900 and 1930 it has been estimated that there were 1.5 million penguins on Dassen Island alone. IFAW’s Work with African Penguins IFAW has a long conservation history with African penguins. IFAW’s emergency rescue efforts and cooperation with other organizations indicates our leadership in African penguin conservation efforts. Through one of our cooperative efforts, IFAW works with the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), and other groups in a program entitled the ‘Chick Bolstering Project.’ The ‘Chick Bolstering Project’ is an important intervention that saves the lives of a great many penguin chicks that are abandoned by their parents towards the end of the annual breeding season. The end of the breeding season brings on a period where adult penguins begin molting. During molting the penguins shed old feathers and grow new ones. Unfortunately, this process leaves normally waterproof African penguins unable to swim, catch fish or feed chicks. In 2006, SANCCOB reared 841 orphaned chicks and in 2007, another 418 needed help. While the abandonment of end of season chicks is not unusual, the abandonment of so many chicks at one time is extremely unusual. More than 80 percent of the rescued chicks were released back into the wild to start contributing to the breeding population over the next couple of years. Research conducted by the Avian Demography Unit of the University of Cape Town found that the African penguin population is 19 percent higher today thanks to SANCCOB’s rehabilitation efforts. In addition to the ‘Chick Bolstering Project,’ IFAW has participated in a number of massive clean-up and rescue efforts after major oil spills off the South African coast. In July 2000, MV Treasure, a Panamanian-registered bulk-ore carrier, sank off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa after suffering damage at sea. As a result, over 1000 tons of heavy fuel oil was spilled into Table Bay and over 20,000 endangered African Penguins from the major colonies on nearby Dassen and Robben Islands were oiled. Immediately following, Cape Nature, the local wildlife authority began making plans to evacuate oiled and un-oiled birds from the Islands. Meanwhile, SANCCOB began preparing for the worst, immediately mobilizing the IFAW Emergency Relief team to help support and manage what became the largest operation of its kind in history. Because of the efforts of IFAW and other major stakeholders, over 90 percent of the birds affected were successfully rehabilitated and released. Long-term monitoring of the birds has shown that the majority survived and went on to breed successfully again in the wild. Decreased Abundance of Prey Species Due to Competition A number of rivals compete for prey resources with the African penguins. Cape fur seals, which had been significantly killed off by the end of the 19th century, have recruited rapidly and commercial fisheries have been successfully established. Between them, seals and fisheries removed 2 million more tons of fish and cephalopods from the South African coastal ecosystem, the Benguela system, in the 1980s than they did in the 1930s. Consumption by seals during this period rose from about .1 to 1 million tons, and the harvest by fishermen rose from .01 million tons to 1.3 million tons. The diet of seals and the catch of fisheries overlap considerably with the diet of African penguins, especially with regards to sardine and anchovy. In South Africa, sardine is a major component to the diet of African penguins, and reductions in sardine fisheries have caused some African penguin populations to decline. Between 1997 and 2005, the local sardine population shifted significantly eastward. By 2005, the sardine population that African penguins rely on had been displaced by about 400 kilometers to the south-east. In the Western Cape there were decreases at the four northernmost African penguin colonies as the sardine populations began to move to the south and east. More recently, numbers at central penguin colonies have begun to decrease. By 2006, African penguins in the Eastern Cape had not benefitted from the eastward displacement of sardine because the usual foraging range of breeding African penguins is 40 kilometers, and the 400 kilometer south-east shift of sardine populations by the year 2005 placed this valuable food source beyond the range of foraging African penguins, including those on the Eastern Cape. The Threat of Predation A massive decline of African penguins has been recorded at Dyer Island, where numbers of breeding pairs fell from about 23,000 pairs in the late 1970s to about 2000 pairs from 1997 onwards. Around Dyer Island, Cape Fur Seals (Arctocephalus pusillus) prey on penguins. Systematic observations of predation were conducted from June-December 2004, when 13 percent of adult penguins at the island were killed. This is considered unsustainable. Predation by seals on seabirds in the Benguela system is almost wholly undertaken by subadult male seals. The Threat of Oil and Gas Oil spills can have catastrophic effects on seabirds, including African penguins. Documented estimates of cumulative seabird mortality attributable to oil pollution worldwide between 1937 and 1999 are over 1 million birds. The spill from Exxon Valdez alone probably killed hundreds of thousands of birds and long term effects have persisted in some ecosystems for more than a decade. Accidents, transportation of petroleum and other routine operations involving vessels may account for an estimated 26 -43 percent of the oil entering marine systems; the remainder stems from natural seepage, runoff from rivers and coastal facilities, and release of petroleum from consumption related activities. IFAW participated in a massive rescue effort in June 2000 where more than 19,000 oiled African penguins were cleaned, rehabilitated and released. Around 2000 orphaned chicks were hand-raised and released following the Treasure spill. The results of subsequent studies confirm that survival to breeding age of hand- reared chicks is no different than naturally reared chicks. Further, breeding success of captive reared chicks is at least as good as that of naturally reared chicks. 1,000 hand reared chicks will produce around 1,220 chicks themselves over their lifetimes. Averages of 4.4 oiled birds per day were admitted to SANCCOB during 2001 and 2002. These were years with no large oiling incidents. This provides an estimate of the chronic oiling rate. For the African penguin, there is sufficient data to estimate trends in the chronic oiling rate since 1970. Apart from the 1990’s, and excluding large oiling events, about one penguin in each 225 penguins off the Western Cape of South Africa has been admitted to SANCCOB oiled each year. During the 1990’s this figure was one in 65. Between the establishment of SANCCOB in 1968 and 2002, there have been four oiling incidents in which more than 3000 penguins were oiled; these major incidents involved a total of 36,000 penguins, or about 1000 per year, averaged over the 30 year period. The Threat of Climate Change The United Nations’ panel of climate change scientists has warned that Earth’s average temperature could increase more than two degrees Celsius by century’s end even if major efforts are made to curb greenhouse gases, and twice as fast under “business-as-usual” scenarios. Over the next few decades, the earth’s atmosphere is expected to become warmer than at any time in the last 40 million years. A .6 degree increase in mean temperature has been recorded over the last century as a result of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide trapping solar energy within the earth’s atmosphere. While the earth has warmed and cooled significantly at least 20 times in the last 500,000 years, the current warming spell is faster than ever recorded before, and is now conclusively linked to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mainly from human activity. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now 30% higher than in the past 420,000 years, and are on track to reach levels by 2100 not seen on the planet in several tens of millions of years. The Benguela region, off the Atlantic coast of southern Africa, is at a critical location in terms of global climate systems, and its marine environment is extremely vulnerable to climate change. In the Northern Benguela, off Namibia, global climate change is expected to alter the frequency and amplitude of Benguela Niño anomalies in addition to inducing gradual increases in sea level, air and sea temperatures and influencing rainfall patterns. The Namibian population of African penguins has declined by more than 75% since the mid-20th century and has been decreasing at 2.5% per year between 1990 and 2005. Extrapolation of data from current population trends indicates that African penguins have a high likelihood of extirpation from the Northern Benguela system during this century. Further, the shifting Benguela system has caused one of the main food sources for African penguins, sardine, to shift east. This shift has caused a distributional change in African penguin populations. The relationship between the altered distributions of African penguins and their prey suggest that indirect impacts of climate change, mediated through prey, will play an important role in the future of the African penguin population. Similar to the situation off South Africa, in the California and Humboldt upwelling ecosystems there have been several changes in the ranges of seabirds that have been attributed to environmental change. Moreover, off Western Australia, tropical seabirds are extending ranges southwards, which is also thought to be as a result of changes in ocean temperatures and climatic conditions. As mentioned in the proposed listing, climate change may also lead to abandonment of chicks as the African penguin molting season advances. In addition to the abandonment of chicks, climate change increases the risk of coastal flooding which may displace African penguins from traditional nesting ground. Specifically, the Federal Register announcement notes that almost 11 percent of the nests on the four major breeding grounds are experiencing a moderate to high risk of flooding. Threat of Climate Change to Penguin Species Denied Listing Unfortunately, the sound reasoning applied by FWS to the decision to list African penguins as endangered was not applied to decisions denying listing for the macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus), the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) and for the majority of the range of Southern (Eudyptes chrysocome chrysocome) and Northern (Eudyptes chrysocome moseleyi) rockhopper penguin species. These penguin species are under the same environmental stresses as the listed African penguin, yet were somehow deemed not threatened. According to a new study, if climate change continues to melt sea ice at the rate highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the large emperor penguin colony in Terre Adélie, Antarctica is set to shrink from its current 3,000 breeding pairs to only 400 pairs in 2100. The probability of a “drastic decline” by 95% or more is at least 40%, and could be as much as 80%. Over the past 50 years, the population of emperor penguins in Terre Adélie, Antarctica, has declined by 50% because of a decrease in adult survival rate during the late 1970s. During that decade there was a long and abnormal warm period with reduced sea-ice. Mortality rates of emperor penguins increased when warm sea- surface temperatures occurred in the species’ foraging area and when annual sea- ice extent was reduced. Also, mortality was higher for males than females. These results indicate strong and contrasting effects of large-scale oceanographic processes and sea-ice extent of the demography of emperor penguins, and their potential high susceptibility to climate change. The threat to emperor penguins is supported by research on other penguin species including the king penguin. Like with African penguins, El Niño Southern Oscillation affects breeding as the penguins have an immediate response to altered food availability. The population model derived from this study indicates that the king penguin will suffer a 9% decline in adult survival for a .26 degree Celsius warming. Therefore, under current global warming predictions, king penguins are at risk of extinction. Macaroni penguins are also at risk due to climate change. Macaroni penguin populations at Marion Island decreased after 1994-1995 from 430,000 to 356,000 pairs. The decreases are thought to result from insufficient food, possibly attributable to climate change, resulting inter alia, in reduced breeding success. Further, at other sub-Antarctic localities, decreases of macaroni penguins have been reported. For some of these decreases, an altered availability of food brought about through climate change was suggested as a possible, even probable, cause. Conclusion IFAW fully supports the listing of African penguins as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act. However, we strongly urge FWS to reverse the decision not to list macaroni penguin, emperor penguin, or the majority of the range of Northern and Southern rockhopper penguin populations. Thank you for your careful consideration on these matters. Sincerely, /S/ Jeffrey Flocken Jeffrey Flocken Office Director 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 1220 Washington, D.C. 20036 Appendix I: Range of African Penguin Source: Crawford, R.J.M., et al. “An altered carrying capacity of the Benguela upwelling ecosystem for African penguins (Spheniscus demersus).” ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil, Vol. 64(3), pp. 570-576 (2007).