Endangered
Cape Cormorant
Phalacrocorax capensis
The Cape cormorant, also known as the Cape shag, is a member of the cormorant family.
Appearance
The entire body follows the same coloration. There is little to no sexual dimorphism, with both males and females measuring 61–64 cm and weighing 1.1-1.3 kg, along with a similar plumage. The beak is dark grey-black, and a deep yellow-orange gular pouch can be observed.
Males and females have a wingspan of around 260 mm.
Published measurements include mass about 45.
Range and habitat
Cape cormorants have a non-breeding range extending from Lobito, Angola, to Maputo Bay, Mozambique. Their breeding range is smaller, reaching from Southern Angola to the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Even so, overfishing in the Cape cormorant’s range has led to a shift in food sources.
The main conservation efforts underway for Cape cormorants are the protection of breeding colonies, mainly on specific islands under the jurisdiction of South African National Parks.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Cape cormorants commonly forage in flocks. Their most common prey are pelagic schooling fish, such as anchovies, pilchards, and mackerel.
Cape cormorants are foot-propelled diving birds and can forage from 5m to 34m deep. Even so, their foraging ecology is relatively understudied in comparison to those two species. Cape cormorants usually breed in dense colonies in areas protected from terrestrial predators, such as islands, cliffs, and ledges.
In crisis
It is endemic to the southwestern coast of Africa, and classified as "Endangered" by the IUCN. Even so, one of the major challenges Cape cormorants face is food availability, with prey populations collapsing in areas of the Benguela Upwelling System. Certain studies recommend a comprehensive assessment of cormorant populations and how prey populations affect their numbers.
The Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources has already committed to considering all elements of the ecosystem when managing fish populations. This includes predators such as the Cape cormorant, and the species’ survival will be an important reason to create quota limitations on industrial fishing, among other measures.
Cape Cormorant is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Cape Cormorant, Wikidata item Q1002574. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
