Cape Gannet

Fascinating facts about the Cape Gannet

• A Cape gannet can dive at 100 km/h and plunge 30 metres underwater — yet their skull is reinforced with air sacs that act like a shock absorber, allowing them to hit the water with a force equal to a car crash and walk away unharmed. Their eyes are positioned on the sides of their head to track fish all the way down into the murk.
• In 1956, there were over 150,000 Cape gannets alive. Today roughly 7,500 remain — a 95% collapse in 70 years, driven almost entirely by overfishing that stripped their food supply. A single oil spill could erase them entirely, which is why every breeding colony is now monitored like a living intensive care unit.
• Cape gannets are faithful to both their partners and their rocks. A pair will return to the exact same breeding site, sometimes the identical square metre, year after year for 20+ years — and they recognise their mate's call from kilometres away before they even land.
• They cannot drink fresh water. Cape gannets have specialised salt glands above their eyes that filter seawater, allowing them to excrete salt at three times the concentration of ocean brine — a trick that lets them drink the sea itself while staying hydrated.
• Every Cape gannet chick is raised on stolen food. Parents regurgitate half-digested fish directly into the chick's throat, and the chick will starve if fishing pressure forces parents to hunt too far from the colony — which is happening now, as commercial trawlers move closer to their breeding islands off South Africa.

At a glance

About the Cape Gannet

As the Cape Gannet takes to the skies, its sleek, snow-white body slices through the turbulent air with effortless precision, its piercing gaze scanning the waves below for the telltale flash of a schooling fish. With a swift, decisive plunge, it spears into the ocean's depths, its wings tucked tight, a fleeting, feathered arrow vanishing into the blue. In this fleeting moment, we glimpse the remarkable agility and predatory prowess of a species now precariously balanced on the brink of extinction.

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