Bird Island Nature Reserve
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Bird Island Nature Reserve
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 Bird Island |
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| location | South Africa |
| surface | 0.03 km² |
| Geographical location | 32 ° 6 ' S , 18 ° 18' O |
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| Setup date | 1962 |
| administration | CapeNature |
The nature reserve Bird Iceland Nature Reserve is located on an island about 100 meters from the seaside village of Lamberts Bay , in the municipality Cederberg , District West Coast , Province of Western Cape in South Africa . The three hectare island is connected to the mainland by a dam. The island is an important breeding and resting place for cormorants and especially Cape gannets (Morus capensis). There is also a small group of African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) and South African fur seals (A. pusillus) on the seaside . The reserve is administered by the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board (CapeNature).
The birds are used to visitors and so you can get up to a few meters and experience the courtship and breeding behavior up close. However, thousands of birds are very noisy and produce a lot of fresh guano . In the newly built visitor center there is a guano museum, a coffee shop, an aquarium and a small penguin pool.
The island is one of six places in the world where Cape Gannets breed, and the only place that is easily accessible. Guano was mined on the island from 1888 to 1990. The breakwater that connects the island to the mainland was built in 1959. This gave domestic cats access to the island, where they caused severe damage to the breeding birds.
In December 2005, a group of fur seals attacked the gannet colony. They ate or crushed over 200 birds. The whole colony then fled. For tourism in Lamberts Bay, this meant a 65 percent drop. After a few weeks, the gannets circled again over their old nesting site, but they ended up several kilometers further, where the colony was no longer accessible to tourists, until someone suggested setting up dummy gannets on the orphaned area in order to attract the birds again. After all, hunters with fake ducks can do this too. The city commissioned a local artist to make 200 plastic gannet dummies, which were placed in the nests on the old hatchery. Within a few hours, the first Cape Boobies landed and began to throw their supposed rivals out of their nests. The success seemed to be lasting; In 2007 over 10,000 Cape Boobies lived on the island again.
Cape gannets on Bird Island
Web links
- Description at capenature.co.za (English)
- University of Cape Town , Animal Demography Unit: Bird Island, Lamberts Bay . on www.adu.uct.ac.za (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cape Nature: Lambert's Bay Bird Island Nature Reserve . on www.capenature.co.za (English)
- ↑ Article Süd-Afrika-Magazin ( Memento from August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )