50 Trips! Congratulations and thanks to our dedicated group of Penguin-Pals drivers who have now completed 50 trips in the past 11 months since they were trained. That’s about 5000km of driving to help transport birds and eggs in need of care. Their quick response to “calls outs” from the Stony Point staff helps to get the birds to SANCCOB quickly so that the birds can get the required treatment as soon as possible.
In January the Penguin-Pals volunteers had a meeting with Caire Lottering of CapeNature in order to review the past 11 months and to discuss new ideas of how the Penguin-Pals can support CapeNature at the Stony Point colony this year.
Some of the new initiatives include:
The volunteers will do additional training with SANCCOB to help support the staff with certain of their tasks.
They will also help to increase awareness of the plight of the Critically Endangered African Penguin. Apparently over two thirds of South Africans are still unaware that these penguins are critically endangered. https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2025-01-21-poll-indicates-almost-two-thirds-of-south-africans-unaware-african-penguin-critically-endangered/
Stony Point is one of the main tourist attractions in this area. The Penguin-Pals will look at various ways of helping to inform the tourists and visitors to the colony, as well as giving them guidelines of ways to avoid stressing and interfering with the penguins during their visit. The penguins are already stressed in their quest for finding food amidst the declining fish stocks. This affects them at all stages of their life cycle. In addition, nesting amidst the fynbos does not give them the protection that nesting in guano provides and they are being impacted by climate events such as storms, flooding and heat.
As the birds are already stuggling to survive amidst these big stressors, it is vital to try and reduce the stress within the colony. Visitors to the colony have been observed standing right next to penguins and even patting them, which might have ended up with a very sharp bite!
Please help to share the Guidelines for visitors to Stony Point with friends and visitors: