May 19, 1998
Subject: Peru, Epicenter of El Nino, Fears for Its Wildlife
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By LES LINE
Populations of marine mammals and seabirds on the coast of Peru, including an
endangered penguin species, were devastated in the now-fading El Nino , the
strongest one of the century.
Scientists are only beginning to assess the full impact of a severe yearlong
food shortage caused by record-high water temperatures, but Dr. Patricia
Majluf, a Wildlife Conservation Society zoologist at the Punta San Juan
reserve 300 miles south of Lima, Peru, said the depleted wildlife populations
"may not survive many more events of this magnitude."
"Peruvian marine wildlife is adapted to living in an unpredictable environment
fluctuating between El Ninos and the richest marine system in the world," Dr.
Majluf said. But she noted that some experts predict even stronger and more
frequent El Ninos, adding, "This would be fatal for the fur seals, sea lions
and penguins."
Dr. Majluf said a season of pup production by colonies of South American fur
seals and sea lions had been wiped out. Most of the juvenile animals and a
large part of the breeding adult populations also apparently died, she said.
The beaches on and around Punta San Juan, Dr. Majluf said, were littered at
first with dead sea lion pups that had been born prematurely, and then, a few
weeks later, with the carcasses of thousands of adult animals, mostly females.
As of May 13, only 15 fur seals were counted at a study site on the reserve,
where several hundred would normally be found at this time of year. Fewer than
1,500 sea lions out of a former population of 8,000 had returned to the
beaches. The situation at Punta San Juan was reflected along the Peru coast,
where a survey in March by the Peruvian Marine Institute found only 2,800 fur
seals and 28,000 sea lions, compared with 40,000 and 150,000, respectively, in
early 1997.
While sea temperatures have dropped to slightly above normal, only 50 Humboldt
penguins have shown up to lay eggs at a nesting colony that usually numbers
3,500 to 5,000, Dr. Majluf said. Humboldt penguins, with a world population
estimated at only 13,000 before El Nino struck a year ago, have two breeding
peaks a year. The Punta San Juan penguins raised some chicks in the early
months of El Nino . But a second nesting attempt was flooded out by 52
consecutive hours of heavy rain, the first rain in decades.
"Having depleted their energy reserves, the penguins went back out to sea in
search of food and probably could not find it," Dr. Majluf said.
Meanwhile, none of the so-called guano birds -- guanay cormorants, Peruvian
boobies and brown pelicans whose excrement is harvested for fertilizer -- bred
at the 133-acre reserve in the course of El Nino . Researchers counted 2,600
dead boobies at Punta San Juan, and empty seabird colonies were reported along
the entire coast
Dr. David Duffy, an ecologist with the Pacific Cooperative Study Unit at the
University of Hawaii, shared Dr. Majluf's concerns about the future of the
wildlife. "Peru is the world's El Nino epicenter, and the impact there is
always more severe than in other Pacific areas," he said. "If super strong
events come closer together, there will be a point where the penguins and
seals will be unable to recover.
"A major concern," he added, "is that the Peru marine ecosystem depends on one
species, the anchovy. Since 1972, Peruvians have overfished the anchovy and
continued to fish during El Ninos, which is the equivalent of eating their
seed corn. There are not as many anchovies as there used to be, and this will
make the recovery process from this bust much harder," he said. "This has been
a staggering event."
Punta San Juan is barren but exceptionally rich in marine wildlife because the
peninsula juts to within two miles of the continental shelf and the water is
several degrees colder than elsewhere on the Peruvian coast. "In a mild El
Nino , the cold waters area persist longer, and the animals congregate in this
area because there's still food around," Dr. Majluf said. "But because of the
unusual timing and extreme duration of this event, the impact on wildlife has
been particularly severe."
When westward trade winds periodically weaken or shift direction, warm water
from the western Pacific moves toward the South American coast, forming a
layer over the cold, nutrient rich water that supports the huge schools of
anchovies and sardines on which seals and seabirds feed. The ocean warming
usually begins around Christmas, which accounts for the Peruvian name El Nino
or "Boy Child," and lasts less than six months.
But the sea surface temperature at Punta San Juan started rising in April 1997
and reached 72 degrees in January, 13 degrees higher than the 30-year mean.
Fish schools sank to a depth of more than 500 feet, well beyond the normal
reach of predators.
Fur seals, for example, normally do quick, shallow dives at night when fish
schools are close to the surface, Dr. Majluk said. "They can reach up to 550
feet, but that's one out of a thousand dives because it costs them so much
energy."
Large numbers of gulls, terns and shearwaters also died because of El Nino .
But brown pelicans survived relatively well because they invaded fishing ports
and scavenged for food.
Other oceanic areas were hard-hit as well, Duffy said. Common murres died in
huge numbers in Alaska, young sooty terns are dying from starvation on the
Johnston Atoll in the Hawaiian Islands, and coral life was virtually wiped out
on many reefs, he said.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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