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Food shortages affects to blue-footed boobies
Posted On 02 May 2014
The Blue-footed booby, emblematic bird of the Galapagos Islands, faces a unexpected drop in its population due to the scarcity of food, according to a scientific study supported by the authorities of the Ecuadorian archipelago.According to experts, the descent may be directly related to the shortage of sardines, main food source, or any disease that is affecting the species.
`Overfishing in the North of Peru, where the ocean current carries the food source for the boobies, could be a reason for the decline of the population,´said Víctor Carrión, Director of Ecosystems of the Galapagos National Park (GNP), located 1,000 kilometers from the Ecuadorian coast.
A study by the American biologist Dave Anderson, published by the Avian Conservation & Ecology magazine, activated alarms around this species.
The responsible for the study estimate that the population of this species reached in 2012 the 6,400 adult specimens in relation to the 20,000 individuals recorded in 1960.
