Lusikisiki-born ranger Yandisa Cwecwe is not afraid to get her hands fishy, being dedicated to the conservation of seabirds and, more specifically, the African penguin.
This World Ranger Day, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) highlighted the vital role its rangers play in aiding wildlife.
Cwecwe is the only Sanccob penguin and seabird ranger stationed on Robben Island.
She collaborates with research teams based on the island working together to preserve the terrestrial and marine environments.
This includes morning field patrols to check for injured, sick or oiled birds.
During breeding season, she checks nests for eggs or chicks and monitors them closely to ensure the chicks are not underweight or abandoned.
“We are always monitoring the chicks on the island, especially for being underweight,” she said.
“Penguin food sources have diminished so much due to the overfishing of sardines and anchovies that penguin parents must travel far to find food, often leaving their chicks alone for very long periods, sometimes not making it back at all.
“This makes the chicks and eggs vulnerable to predators, bad weather and starvation.”
On average, 500 to 600 African penguin chicks and about 400 African penguin eggs are brought to them each year by rangers across all the penguin colonies, with numbers increasing by 256% in the last seven years.
Cwecwe grew up in Lusikisiki — 45km from the sea — but became interested in conservation during life science classes at school.
She graduated with an MSc in zoology, specialising in marine biology, from Walter Sisulu University in 2019.
She chose the field after being inspired by a field trip to a marine protected area along the Wild Coast.
“The best part of my job is that I get to contribute to preserving our beautiful and precious planet and help to save the African penguin and all the seabirds that populate our coastline,” she said.
After graduating, she worked under the National Research Foundation as a research assistant intern for two years in a marine conservation genomics laboratory at Stellenbosch University before taking up a post at Sanccob in 2021.
Cwecwe said her passion for seabirds had begun during this post, until a ranger position became available, which she immediately applied for.
“I wanted to be on the ground, close to the penguins and other seabirds and to see where they were being rescued.
“I also wanted to contribute towards the efforts of conserving the marine life, especially the endangered African penguin.”
According to Sanccob, the African penguin population is decreasing at 7.9% a year, and if this percentage continues, it could be extinct by 2035.
In March 2024, BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob took legal action against the office of the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment to implement biologically meaningful no-catch zones around six penguin breeding sites.
This was so that the penguins would not have to compete with commercial purse-seine fishing vessels fishing in their hunting grounds.
“With the penguin numbers already being so low, our main responsibility is to make sure they survive and this means rescuing them.” Cwecwe said.
“We then send them by boat to the chick-rearing unit in Table View, where they are incubated, the eggs are hatched, and the chicks are hand-reared for release back into the wild.
“This is done with the aim of bolstering the declining wild population.”
World Ranger Day was created by the International Ranger Federation in 2007.
The 2024 theme “30 by 30" reflects the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to protect 30% of land and waters by 2030, adopted at COP15 in December 2022.
“Becoming a ranger has been very rewarding for me and I encourage anyone who wants to become a ranger to work hard at school, follow their passion and love for animals, be open to working closely with others,” she said.
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