Birdland

Conservation Initiatives

Punta San Juan Program

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Alistair Keen

Head Keeper, Birdland

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In September I was fortunate enough to head to the reserve for 15 days to help the team on site, mainly focussing on Humboldt Penguins, but also doing some bits with South American Fur Seal & Sea Lion, Peruvian Pelican, Guanay Cormorant and Peruvian Booby.

 

The Peninsula at PSJ is located on one of the worlds most productive coastline were the Humboldt Current meets a shallow continental shelf, leading to upwelling and hugely fertile waters.  This feeds huge populations of anchovies which in turn feed a huge range of marine predators.

 

Many of these Seabirds nest on the peninsula and produce tonnes and tonnes of guano, which has been harvested for centuries as a top fertiliser.  However, the populations of many key species here are in decline due to the effects of El Nino & Avian Influenza, along with over fishing, pollution, climate change and the guano harvest.

 

There was a controlled Guano Harvest taking place at PSJ this year (2025) and part of my time there was to monitor the effects of the harvest on the penguins and how they transitioned between nesting and feeding grounds.  Everything possible is done to minimise disturbance but the birds are still incredibly flighty and will often change course or retreat at the slightest thing.  6 hours of monitoring is done everyday and fed into a database to provide evidence of the effects.

 

We also were tasked with building artificial nest boxes for the penguins.  Lose of guano means reduced depth of nests, with many nests failing due to overheating, or egg/chick predation from vultures and gulls.  Led by an American volunteer team of engineers we built 100 nest boxes to go onsite early next year (hoping to go out again) to supplement the 90 on site already, so every pair should have the option of a artificial nest.

 

We also helped with nest data recording from drone images, daily coast checks and predator control.