A fight to save the African penguin

This article appeared in issue 6 of ThisWildEarth. Explore our publications and read more stories like these.

As temperatures rise and colonies fall, conservationists are stepping in to save the African penguin from extinction. Behind the scenes, the work is relentless. By René Laing

African Penguin by the numbers

• Population has declined by more than 95% over the last century.

• 2035: The date African penguins may no longer exist if current trends continue.

• Seven: The biggest colonies in South Africa where penguins breed.

• Dyer Island: The only colony increasing in size, all others declining.

• Two countries: African penguins live in South Africa and Namibia.

On a sweltering summer’s day along South Africa’s coast, teams move through an African penguin colony, scanning the ground beneath low bushes and rocky outcrops.

They are not looking for birds, but for abandoned eggs. When temperatures soar, penguins are forced into an impossible choice: stay and risk heatstroke or leave and abandon the nest. Without the thick guano deposits penguins once dug into for insulated nests, there is little protection from the sun.

For the teams from the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), each egg represents a decision. Leave it, and it will fail. Take it, and it becomes part of an increasingly artificial lifeline for a species on the brink.

“It’s a race against the heat,” says Robyn Fraser-Knowles, resource developer at SANCCOB. “If a penguin stays on the nest too long, it risks heatstroke. So, the adults leave to cool down in the ocean. Unfortunately, that means the eggs are left behind.” Once a penguin leaves an egg for any amount of time, they do not return.

With authorisation from conservation authorities, SANCCOB now collects the abandoned eggs, a regulated process becoming more frequent. Scientists warn that the African penguin could disappear from the wild within the next decade if current population trends continue.

Inside the penguin nursery

Behind the scenes at SANCCOB, hundreds of eggs sit in incubators where teams constantly monitor temperature and humidity. Each egg is weighed, tracked, and checked daily. Staff shine a light through the shells – a process known as candling – to confirm whether life is developing inside. Every viable egg matters to this Critically Endangered species.

Between January and mid-April, the team brought 506 eggs to the facility, all from abandoned nests. But the real pressure starts once they hatch. Newborn chicks require round-the-clock care. They are fed every three hours with a specially prepared fish formula designed to replicate the nutrients they would receive from their parents. Each chick consumes roughly 15% of its body weight daily, with feeding volumes adjusted as they grow.

“This is the stage where we can’t rely on volunteers,” Fraser-Knowles explains. “It requires trained staff, and it’s incredibly intensive. The staff are exhausted,” she says. “We have had to reach out to zoos and aquariums from across the world for additional help.”

Penguins can breed throughout the year, although peak seasons vary between colonies and from year to year. If a breeding attempt fails, they may try again, adding further unpredictability to an already strained system.

Raising wild penguins by hand

SANCCOB’s facility can hold up to 400 eggs and around 200 chicks at any given time. Once hatched, chicks are tube-fed multiple times a day with a nutrient-rich fish formula, enriched with probiotics to mimic a parent’s regurgitated feed. They are cleaned, monitored, and weighed regularly. To check for parasites, the team takes blood smears once penguins enter the rehabilitation pen, and maintain strict hygiene protocols to reduce disease risk.

At the same time, Fraser-Knowles explains, they try to get the birds out of the facility within 100 days, as keeping large numbers of birds in close proximity increases disease risk. But chicks cannot leave until they reach a healthy weight and develop all their waterproof feathers. 

In 2025, more than 100 hand-reared penguins were released into the wild. This year’s counts will far exceed that. But even as these birds are given a second chance, the conditions that led to their rescue remain uncertain.

More than heat: a species under pressure

The abandoned eggs are only the more visible symptom of a much larger crisis. Out at sea, African penguins are also struggling to find food.

Natural vulnerability along with decades of industrial fishing have reduced the availability of sardines and anchovies. At the same time, shifting ocean conditions are pushing these fish stocks further away from traditional breeding colonies. For a penguin, less fish means longer foraging trips, more energy spent, and less food brought back to the nest.

Taking the fight to court

In South Africa, the crisis has pushed conservation beyond fieldwork and into the legal arena. In 2024, BirdLife South Africa and SANCCOB, supported by the Biodiversity Law Centre took legal action against the South African government over inadequate protections for the African penguin, arguing that commercial fishing close to breeding colonies was reducing access to critical prey species.

The case used scientific evidence that penguins increasingly compete directly with fishing vessels. Tracking studies show significant overlap between penguin foraging areas and commercial fleets.

In March 2025, a negotiated settlement between conservation organisations, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), and the fishing industry was formalised as a court order, establishing 10-year no-fishing zones around six key African penguin breeding colonies, including St Croix, Dassen Island, and Stony Point. The revised closures are designed to better protect the penguins’ foraging areas, though conservationists note that some colonies remain less well protected than others. It marked a significant step forward but also underscored a difficult truth: without reliable access to food, there can be no recovery.

Building a new colony

East of the Western Cape’s major colonies, at De Hoop Nature Reserve, another kind of intervention is taking place, but it is still very early days. The landscape feels alive even before a single bird comes into view. Penguin calls echo across the rocky slopes, broadcast through speakers. Decoys stand scattered across the landscape, mimicking the presence of a thriving colony.

“When you arrive, you can hear the colony before you see it,” says Christina Hagen, a Pamela Isdell Fellow of Penguin Conservation at BirdLife South Africa. “It sounds alive.”

But much of it is carefully constructed, an illusion designed to bring a real colony back to life. In a collaboration between BirdLife South Africa, CapeNature and SANCCOB, conservationists are attempting something not tried before for this species: establishing a new mainland colony. The strategy is simple: convince wild penguins that this is a safe place to land, rest, and breed.

Hagen explains that similar techniques have been used to restore seabird colonies elsewhere in the world. At De Hoop, years of planning went into selecting a site with two critical features: access to food and protection from predators. The fact that penguins once nested here, made the decision easier.

The location offered both features. A predator-proof fence, installed in 2018, adds an extra layer of security, though not without challenges. In 2024, a honey badger breached the enclosure, killing 11 penguins early in the breeding season. The site is now also under CCTV monitoring.

Some wild penguins arrived in 2022. That same year, one pair bred successfully. Since then, numbers have slowly increased. Hagen says she saw some penguins pairing up during a recent visit, a sign that they might get ready to breed.

Speeding up the process

Under natural conditions, colony growth is slow. Penguins return to land to breed after spending the first four years of life at sea, and they usually return to where they were born. This is where SANCCOB’s work becomes critical. Penguins raised in captivity and released at De Hoop are more likely to return there to breed, helping to grow the colony.

“It’s a really important part of the project,” Hagen says. “The wild birds started it, but the hand-reared birds can help accelerate the process.”

So far, more than 300 penguins have been released at the site. The first of these released birds should reach sexual maturity soon, hopefully returning to breed. If De Hoop succeeds, it could offer the population a boost and a helping hand towards recovery.

Back at SANCCOB, the work continues much as it did before: eggs arriving, chicks hatching, staff moving between incubators and enclosures in an unending cycle of care. Many of these birds will make their way to De Hoop. Some may breed and ensure a brighter future for the species. Survival depends on a chain of interventions, from rescuing eggs in the heat, to protecting feeding grounds at sea, to building new colonies along the coast.

Somewhere, on another sweltering day another penguin might abandon its nest. Whether that chick survives and contributes to the future of the species depends not on penguins, but for now, on us.

How you can help

-        Choose sustainable seafood: Follow the WWF SASSI green list and avoid species under pressure, especially sardines and anchovies, which are vital for penguins.

-        Support conservation work: SANCCOB cares for hundreds of chicks each year, while BirdLife South Africa leads research and advocacy efforts. Both rely on public support. 

-        Be a responsible coastal visitor: Keep your distance from nesting sites and respect protected areas. Disturbance can cause adults to abandon nests.

-        Reduce pollution: Cut down on plastic and noise pollution along the coast. Both place additional stress on marine life.

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