Editor’s note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series dedicated to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet and their solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to promote awareness and education on key sustainability issues and inspire positive action.
cape town, south africa
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In the heat of a crisp summer morning, a flock of penguins stand with their white bellies facing the sun on the shores of Betty’s Bay, South Africa.
These are African penguins, and unlike their Antarctic cousins, this small species thrives in the heat and lives along the more temperate coastlines of South Africa and Namibia.
These cute and charming birds draw tens of thousands of tourists to southern Africa each year, but they are rapidly disappearing from coastlines. In 2024, African penguins were listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is believed that there are currently fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left in the wild.
The Southern African Coastal Bird Conservation Foundation (SANCCOB) is one of Southern Africa’s longest-running seabird conservation organizations, with a focus on restoring populations through rescue, rehabilitation, and research. Founded in 1968, the organization is known for its work protecting African penguins.
“We see these birds every day that come in (to SANCCOB) with pretty severe trauma and debilitating issues. They are having a really hard time in the wild,” said Jade Scufu, SANCCOB’s rehabilitation manager.
Over the past 30 years, African penguin populations have suffered an estimated 80% population decline due to environmental pollution, habitat destruction and food shortages, with recent studies citing starvation as the main cause of death.
The study, a collaboration between South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment and the University of Exeter in the UK, found that more than 60,000 birds died from malnutrition between 2004 and 2011 on Robben Island and Dassen Island, two of South Africa’s most important breeding grounds.
African penguins rely primarily on schools of small fish such as sardines and anchovies. However, climate change and intensive commercial fishing have drastically reduced fish stocks.
Sardines are becoming increasingly scarce along the coasts of southern Africa, forcing penguins to go farther offshore to forage, a change that is having a huge impact on both adult survival and the lives of their young.
The study also found that sardine populations have been in chronic decline for nearly two decades, hovering around 25% of their former numbers, suggesting a long-term decline in the West-South African region.
And along the coast of Namibia, once home to African penguins, sardine populations have virtually disappeared due to rising ocean temperatures, changes in salinity, and overfishing.
“Fishing is big business and we don’t want to shut down fishing completely. Fishing is a vitally important part of our economy,” SANCCOB’s Robin Fraser Knowles told CNN.
Although no single factor is responsible for declining fish stocks, “if we don’t reduce fishing, the ecosystem will collapse,” she warns.
SANCCOB is a world-class rehabilitation facility that provides 24-hour medical care and support to penguins and other seabirds suffering from injuries, oil contamination, disease, and other ailments.
SANCCOB rescued 948 penguins last year, which were typically “skinny at best” upon arrival, Fraser-Knowles said. One recently recognized adult penguin weighed just 1.9 kg (4.2 lb), less than half its ideal weight of about 4 kg (8.8 lb).
“We’re seeing this very strong trend in the bodies that are washed up and the bodies that we treat,” Fraser-Knowles said. “Penguins in the wild can no longer find their ideal weight.”
SANCCOB researcher Albert Snyman keeps a small pile of stones in his lab as a stark reminder of how serious the hunger crisis has become.
These stones were found in the stomach of a penguin chick that was admitted to SANCCOB and later died, helping to explain why the penguin did not grow. The stones interfered with the animal’s ability to absorb nutrients from the food the staff was feeding it.
“The parents were so desperate to feed the baby that they were feeding it rocks,” Fraser-Knowles said.
Child neglect is also an issue that affects young people. African penguin parents usually take turns caring for their chicks on land while the other penguin forages for food at sea. But with extreme weather, more predators and longer and farther foraging trips, they are increasingly abandoning their eggs and chicks, Fraser-Knowles says.
If one parent is killed or delayed due to lack of food and does not return, the remaining parent will leave the nest to search for food, effectively abandoning the chick.
SANCCOB clinical veterinarian Dr David Roberts said malnutrition affects penguins in a number of ways, including their annual molt.
African penguins molt every year, during which they stay on land and fast for up to three weeks. During that time, they shed worn-out feathers and grow new ones to keep them warm and buoyant, allowing them to hunt in cold seawater.
Lack of food can cause molting to be delayed or fail completely because they are unable to store the fat they need to survive so quickly.
“They come (to SANCCOB) with really old and damaged feathers, so we have to feed them and start the molting cycle, because they can’t do that in the wild anymore,” Roberts told CNN.
But starvation is just one of many interconnected threats these penguins face.
Roberts said most of his surgeries are traumatic. Trauma can be caused by everything from pollution to plastic entanglements.
But more often than not, he says, the wounds are the result of bites from predators such as seals or sharks.
A lack of fish increases injuries and deaths from predation, as malnourished penguins are weaker and less able to escape from predators.
Many African penguin colonies are located along major shipping routes and ports, where oil pollution remains a significant threat to the birds. Noise pollution from ships and ship-related injuries add further stress to people.
With habitat loss and increased disturbance in and around what remains, “they’re not breeding as well, they’re not feeding as well, and everything is becoming more difficult for them,” Fraser-Knowles said.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), a highly contagious form of avian influenza, and avian malaria also pose significant threats to penguins.
Despite the challenges facing African penguins, there is some hope.
Just last year, African penguins scored a big win. In March, conservationists and commercial fishermen reached an agreement to establish no-take zones that will protect South Africa’s six major breeding colonies for 10 years. All extractive activities, from fishing to mining, are prohibited in these marine reserves, providing a safer environment for penguins to feed and breed.
“We hope that the data shows that the exclusion zone around Robben Island should stop population decline on that island alone by 2033, but of course all these other factors are also at play,” Fraser-Knowles said.
Since its inception in 2006, SANCCOB’s Chick Enrichment Project, which rescues abandoned hatchlings, has returned more than 10,000 penguins to their natural habitat.
In 2021, SANCCOB established the world’s first man-made protected penguin colony in De Hoop Nature Reserve, and the released penguins are now breeding.
Fraser-Knowles said success over the next five to 10 years would require stabilizing wild colonies, expanding no-take areas beyond current recommendations, and significantly reducing quotas for sardines and anchovies.
He emphasized that consumer choice is also important, and said that reducing livestock feed and pet food, including fish, and choosing to eat sustainably caught species listed in the WWF SASSI Seafood Guide are steps people can take towards protecting African penguins.
“These are indicator species and their decline indicates that our ecosystem is in serious trouble,” she added. “Without food security, a trickle-down effect begins, and it trickles down to humanity.”
