Twenty rehabilitated African penguins – 15 juveniles and five adults – returned to the wild at Boulders Beach on Wednesday, July 22, after receiving specialist care at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB).
The release formed part of SANCCOB’s ongoing efforts to rescue, rehabilitate and return vulnerable seabirds to the wild.
Timed to coincide with favourable weather and sea conditions, the release gave the critically endangered birds the best possible chance of successfully readjusting to life in the ocean.
Every release gives endangered penguins another chance
African penguins are admitted to SANCCOB for a variety of reasons, including predation, emaciation, injuries and incidents involving human-wildlife conflict.
Chicks and eggs are also brought into care after being abandoned, affected by extreme weather events such as heat stress and flooding, or found to be in poor condition.
Before a penguin is released, it undergoes a thorough assessment by SANCCOB’s rehabilitation and veterinary teams to ensure it is ready to survive in the wild.
“Before an African penguin can be released back into the wild, we must be confident that it is healthy and physically fit to survive,” said Ford Wildlife Foundation manager Lynda du Plessis.
She said each penguin must be fully waterproof, have healthy blood parameters and reach an appropriate body weight for its age and stage of development before being cleared for release.
“Every step of the rehabilitation process is carefully monitored to ensure each penguin has the best possible chance of thriving once it returns to the wild.”
Preparing the birds for release is only part of the process. Conservationists also carefully monitor environmental conditions before deciding when and where the birds can be returned to the ocean.
“We aim to release penguins when ocean conditions are calm, both on the day of release and over the following few days, allowing them time to acclimatise to their natural environment,” Du Plessis said.
According to Du Plessis, wherever possible, rehabilitated penguins are released into protected breeding colonies, where they have the greatest opportunity to reintegrate into the wild population.
She explained that once released, the penguins head straight out to sea rather than returning immediately to a colony.
Adult birds typically forage before returning to their breeding colonies, while fledglings travel north towards Namibia, where they spend time feeding and developing before returning during the breeding season.
Post-release monitoring also plays an important role, she added.
Rather than tracking individual penguins at sea, colony rangers monitor breeding pairs, colony numbers and chick development to assess the health of penguin colonies and determine whether rehabilitated birds are successfully reintegrating into the wild.
Du Plessis said every successful release plays an important role in conserving the species.
“Every African penguin released back into the wild represents a success for both SANCCOB and the recovery of the wild population,” she said.
Across SANCCOB’s two seabird hospitals in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, about 80% of African penguins admitted for treatment are successfully rehabilitated and released.
The Ford Wildlife Foundation has supported SANCCOB’s rescue work for many years by providing vehicles that enable rescue teams to respond quickly to seabirds in need and transport them safely to the organisation’s rehabilitation centres.
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