The Penguin Run is on! This year, BirdLife South Africa has come up with a fun and innovative way of getting people interested in African penguin conservation.
Fitted with tracking devices, five African penguins have been released along the Southern African coast, and will have to do what all penguins do at this time of year – look for food! It’s moulting season, and the birds need to bulk up before they lose their feathers. However, with their natural food sources becoming increasingly scarce, African penguins need to swim farther out to sea to find fish.
This is where the the Penguin Run website comes in. You can track each bird on the interactive map, and choose which one of the five you think will travel the furthest distance before October 13.
“The Penguin Run is part of our annual Save Our Seabirds Festival, a National Marine Week initiative,” says Dr Ross Wanless, Seabird Division Manager at BirdLife South Africa. “It’s creating a face, or a personality, to biodiversity research and conservation, because there are some really big, pressing issues that BirdLife South Africa is dealing with, and the penguins are a great way to communicate those issues.”
The penguins come from Dassen Island, and had satellite tracking devices attached last month in preparation for this project.
“The African penguin population is in a bad shape. That’s the most basic and obvious message we’re communicating. Next is about the fact that the penguin is a sentinel, an indicator species for marine ecosystem health. If they’re in trouble, it’s indicating very clearly that things are going badly more broadly and we cannot ignore those warning signs. And the third message is about food security, jobs, livelihoods and sustainability – because we cannot afford to lose our fisheries.
“This is not about stopping boats from catching fish; it’s about working with fisheries and the government to find solutions to a pressing issue, but those solutions need to sustain both biodiversity and healthy fisheries. Those are not incompatible, but we need to have the space to think creatively and work out solutions that everyone can live with.”
Each of the penguins in the Penguin Run has its own Twitter account, and they have already been tweeting away during their travels:
Don't bother coming to play boys and girls. Victory's in the bag. The water's too cold for you anyway. And Fluke, just no. #thepenguinrun
— Titan The Penguin (@TitanThePenguin) October 7, 2013
Tracking device activated.
— Skip The Penguin (@SkipThePenguin) October 7, 2013
Current location S35 07.34 E020 38.96
— Siren The Penguin (@SirenThePenguin) October 7, 2013
Um. Where is everyone? #thepenguinrun
— Fluke The Penguin (@FlukeThePenguin) October 7, 2013
Ever feel like you're being watched? Me neither. #thepenguinrun
— Hank The Penguin (@HankThePenguin) October 7, 2013
Check out the website now to back your bird and learn some useful penguin facts.
Join us for African Penguin Awareness Day
We’ve organised a fun-filled day of activities aimed at raising awareness about our black-and-white feathered friends this Saturday, October 12, at the Two Oceans Aquarium – click here for more information.
Stay in touch: for daily Aquarium updates, follow us on Twitter (@2OceansAquarium) and become a fan on Facebook.
