Celebrating International African Penguin Awareness Day

We celebrated International African Penguin Awareness Day (8 October 2022) to raise awareness of these flightless birds. Penguins are not just found in cold climates, such as Antarctica, but also in warmer temperatures off the southern coast of Africa.

African penguins were previously known as jack-ass penguins because they make donkey-like braying sounds to communicate. The black and white markings of the African penguin are a form of countershading camouflage against predators out in the wild. Their feathers also allow them to easily coordinate movement with each other underwater.

Did you know? The pattern of spots on the chest and belly of each African penguin is unique, kind of like a human’s fingerprints. It helps them identify each other.

Lack of food is, unfortunately, not the only threat to African penguins. Since the start of ship-to-ship bunkering in Algoa Bay in 2016, noise pollution has doubled in the bay, making it one of the noisiest in the world. Simultaneously, the number of African penguins breeding on St Croix has declined.

St Croix Island has lost 87% of the African penguin breeding pairs. In real terms, it equates to 6 616 breeding pairs or 13 232 penguins. The average loss of penguin pairs during the last five years since 2017 is 1000 pairs per year. Thus, a thousand fewer pairs of penguins have been bred on the island every year.