News

Table Mountain National Parks (TMNP) celebrates Penguin Awareness Day. Penguin Awareness Day is celebrated annually on the 20th January and we want to encourage our visitors to respect and conserve this important species when visiting the Simon’s Town Penguin colony. Table Mountain National Park together with SANCCOB and the City of Cape Town work very hard to conserve this important and endangered species. Dr Alison Kock – Marine Biologist from the Cape Research Centre says “the species is undergoing severe declines across South Africa due to food shortages, as a result of climate change and overfishing. The Simon’s Town colony is one of only a few colonies in the country that has a stable population – we suspect this is due to increased food availability close to the colony”.

Last year a research project was initiated to study the movement and feeding ecology of breeding African Penguins from the Simon’s Town colony. This project is a collaboration between SANParks, Birdlife South Africa, SANCCOB & the University of Cape Town. The study started in June 2019 during the penguin’s breeding season and ran for 4 months. The GPS loggers that were temporarily attached to 12 adult African Penguins have shown that penguins from Simon’s Town travelled as far as Kogel Bay, 37 km east of the colony.

The penguins used almost the full extent of False Bay and none were recorded leaving the bay. The research is ongoing but has already highlighted the importance of False Bay for penguins needing to feed their chicks. The findings of this research project will assist scientists and managers in having better insight of the types of fish the African Penguins eat, in order to help manage fish stocks more sustainably; determine their hunting areas which can be used to motivate for more Marine Protected Areas; and by knowing where they go, potential threats such as from pollution or illegal fishing can be identified. We urge our visitors to respect Penguins and give them the space they need while visiting their natural habitat.

Figure 1. GPS tracks from breeding African Penguins deployed at Boulders, Simons Town, May – September 2019 (each colour represents an individual African Penguin).

Issued By

South African National Parks (SANParks) Cape Region Communications

Media Enquiries

Lauren Howard-Clayton
Regional Communications Manager
Email: [email protected]
Landline: 021 659 1700