Penguins can’t get enough to eat
23 May 2021
Extinction threat: The African penguins breed on islands off South Africa’s coast, including in the St Croix Island Reserve near the Coega River mouth. Photo: Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild/Getty Images
It was June 2000 and the
MV Treasure, a bulk iron ore carrier, had sunk between two key breeding islands for African penguins, Robben Island in Table Bay and Dassen Island near Cape Town, spilling 400 tonnes of bunker oil into the sea.
Now there is a new alarm bell ringing. Endangered African penguins are being pushed to the brink of extinction by food scarcity, oil spills, extreme weather, predation, sub-optimal breeding habitats and disease, according to scientists and various organisations.
The African Penguin’s Last Stronghold Battered by decades of human abuse, Africa’s only penguin species takes refuge on small, rocky St. Croix Island off the coast of South Africa. Jaco Prinsloo
The twin engines of the 33-foot
My China slow to a gentle burble as we drift toward the coastline of St. Croix Island. Around us, a 300-strong pod of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins caper in the temperate waters of the Indian Ocean, testing the experienced hand of skipper and marine guide Jake Keeton. Flocks of Cape cormorants, gannets, and African black oystercatchers circle above to scavenge anything that the dolphins might miss. Fifty meters away, a Cape fur seal reclines lazily on his back, lounging with his bristly snout barely above the waterline while he suns his fins on a late summer’s morning.