Seabird breeding populantions decrease along the arid coastline of South Africa’s Northern Cape province

Seabirds of the Benguela Ecosystem: Utilisation, Long-Term Changes and Challenges

“…In South Africa, in addition to shifts to the south and east of the three 'guanoproducing' seabirds reported in the previous section, there were decreased proportions of birds breeding in the north and increases in the south for Bank Cormorant P. neglectus, White-breasted Cormorant P. lucidus, Crowned Cormorant Microcarbo coronatus, Kelp Gull Larus dominicanus, Greater Crested (Swift) Tern Thalasseus bergii and Damara Tern Sternula balaenarum [29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. There is little or no competition by White-breasted and Crowned Cormorants, Kelp Gulls and Damara Terns with fisheries for forage resources [36], so environmental change may have influenced the redistributions of the seabirds [33].…”

“…Overall there were large decreases in Bank Cormorants after the 1970s [30,38]. In South Africa there were also decreases of Damara Terns after the 1990s [34] but populations of the other four seabirds showed stability or increased [33].…”

Birds of the arid zones: living life on the edge

“…This artificial provision of surface water for livestock farming may even anchor some granivorous bird species into this environment where they might not otherwise survive. Crawford et al (2018) highlight the difficulties of living across different environments in their study of the fate of seabirds breeding in the arid Northern Cape of South Africa, showing ubiquitous declines caused by anthropogenic change both on land and at sea. Of course, for birds that inhabit already-hot places, the spectre of ongoing climate change looms large.…”

“…Papers in this issue broadly fall into two main groups: those that investigate the ecology of birds in the arid zone (Aourir et al 2018;Boukhriss et al 2018;Chammem et al 2018;Fouzari et al 2018;Krochuk et al 2018;Lubbe et al 2018;Oswald et al 2018;Stanback et al 2018) and those that focus on the impacts of global change and conservation (Abdu et al 2018;Crawford et al 2018;Lee et al 2018). Some of the most fascinating papers in the former collection include those that attempt to shed light on the mysteries of Africa's most iconic arid-zone species.…”

The status and distribution of three species of Sternula terns on the eastern coast of Africa and in the western Indian Ocean, with two species new for Mozambique

“…The global population of Damara Tern is estimated at 9,000 birds but is decreasing and the species is considered globally Vulnerable by BirdLife International (Braby et al 1992, Braby 2011, Crawford et al 2018, BirdLife International 2020 and regionally as Critically Endangered (Taylor et al 2015).…”