Important marine areas for endangered African penguins before and after the crucial stage of moulting.

The population of the Endangered African penguin Spheniscus demersus has decreased by > 65% in the last 20 years. A major driver of this decrease has been the reduced availability of their principal prey, sardine Sardinops sagax and anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus. To date, conservation efforts to improve prey availability have focused on spatial management strategies to reduce resource competition with purse-seine fisheries during the breeding season. However, penguins also undergo an annual catastrophic moult when they are unable to feed for several weeks. Before moulting they must accumulate sufficient energy stores to survive this critical life-history stage. Using GPS tracking data collected between 2012 and 2019, we identify important foraging areas for pre- and post-moult African penguins at three of their major colonies in South Africa: Dassen Island and Stony Point (Western Cape) and Bird Island (Eastern Cape). The foraging ranges of pre- and post-moult adult African penguins (c. 600 km from colony) was far greater than that previously observed for breeding penguins (c. 50 km from colony) and varied considerably between sites, years and pre- and post-moult stages. Despite their more extensive range during the non-breeding season, waters within 20 and 50 km of their breeding colonies were used intensively and represent important foraging areas to pre- and post-moult penguins. Furthermore, penguins in the Western Cape travelled significantly further than those in the Eastern Cape which is likely a reflection of the poor prey availability along the west coast of South Africa. Our findings identify important marine areas for pre- and post-moult African penguins and support for the expansion of fisheries-related spatio-temporal management strategies to help conserve African penguins outside the breeding season.

Completing the Donor History Questionnaire before the Donation Visit Can Improve Blood Safety.

Background and Objectives: In Germany, the donor history questionnaire (DHQ) is traditionally filled in at the donation center to avoid any influence of others. Since March 2020, it has been suggested to donors to answer the DHQ already at home and to call if they have any concerns to reduce the number of ineligible donors on-site during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: We evaluated the rate of ineligible donors before and after March 2020. Additionally, an anonymous online survey asking for the donors' attitude towards the DHQ was performed. It included questions on whether and for what reason the DHQ had been answered incorrectly in the past. Results: The rate of ineligible donors decreased by 27% (from 7.1% to 5.2%). In total, 5,556 of 10,252 invited donors completed the survey (54.2%). 88.6% reported either going through the DHQ at home or knowing all questions from their previous donations. 444 donors (8.0%) had at least once postponed a donation after reading the DHQ at home. 68 donors (1.2%) admitted having intentionally provided false answers in the past (9 at home, 43 on-site, 14 both, 2 unknown). Not wanting to be rejected once arriving at the donation center was an important motivation for 42% of donors answering incorrectly on-site. Details on 46 incorrect answers were provided: only 17 had no influence on donor eligibility or product quality. In 5 cases, some blood products might have had impaired quality. Truthful answers to 17 questions would have led to deferral, mostly due to increased risk for unrecognized viral infections transmitted by sexual contacts. For a further 7 questions, there was insufficient information available to determine possible consequences. Asked about their general opinion, 753 (13.6%) of all donors estimated the risk of incorrect answers being greater on-site, while 239 (4.3%) presumed an increased risk at home. Conclusion: Answering the DHQ prior to a donation visit prevented ineligible donors from visiting the donation center. Furthermore, it might improve honesty, as the discomfort of being deferred after arriving at the donation center was an important reason to answer incorrectly. Overall, there was no increased risk of donor or product safety, and potentially even a benefit.

The conservation status and population decline of the African penguin deconstructed in space and time.

Understanding changes in abundance is crucial for conservation, but population growth rates often vary over space and time. We use 40 years of count data (1979-2019) and Bayesian state-space models to assess the African penguin Spheniscus demersus population under IUCN Red List Criterion A. We deconstruct the overall decline in time and space to identify where urgent conservation action is needed. The global African penguin population met the threshold for Endangered with a high probability (97%), having declined by almost 65% since 1989. An historical low of ~17,700 pairs bred in 2019. Annual changes were faster in the South African population (-4.2%, highest posterior density interval, HPDI: -7.8 to -0.6%) than the Namibian one (-0.3%, HPDI: -3.3 to +2.6%), and since 1999 were almost -10% at South African colonies north of Cape Town. Over the 40-year period, the Eastern Cape colonies went from holding ~25% of the total penguin population to ~40% as numbers decreased more rapidly elsewhere. These changes coincided with an altered abundance and availability of the main prey of African penguins. Our results underline the dynamic nature of population declines in space as well as time and highlight which penguin colonies require urgent conservation attention.

Is mindfulness protective against PTSD? A neurocognitive study of 25 Tsunami disaster survivors.

BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that mindfulness is a protective factor that buffers individuals from experiencing severe posttraumatic stress following exposure to a trauma. We aimed to examine the association between dispositional (trait) mindfulness and posttraumatic stress in individuals who had been exposed to the trauma of a natural disaster. METHOD: A disaster group (n = 25) consisting of Norwegian tourists who survived the 2004 South East Asian tsunami at a location with high mortality rates was recruited. Dispositional mindfulness and posttraumatic stress were measured with the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised Version, respectively. RESULTS: There was no significant association between mindfulness and posttraumatic stress. Moreover, there were no significant associations between posttraumatic stress and the mindfulness sub-facets of observing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reacting. However, there was a significant positive correlation between the descriptive factor of mindfulness and IES-R total. There were no significant linear correlations between the five sub-facets of mindfulness and the three categories of posttraumatic symptoms, intrusion, avoidance and hyper-arousal. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings do not indicate a relationship between dispositional mindfulness and posttraumatic stress levels after exposure to a trauma, except for the descriptive sub-facet of mindfulness and here the correlation is positive and not negative as would be expected if mindfulness is a protective factor for posttraumatic stress. Future studies should investigate the relationship between mindfulness and posttraumatic stress while accounting for factors such as trauma history, type of trauma, and individual differences in traumatic stress reactions.