Researchers to release hand-reared penguin chicks into the wild
The plan is to release scores of the seabirds at the De Hoop nature reserve, boosting efforts to start a new breeding colony
09 November 2020 - 15:39
SA researchers plan to release scores of abandoned, hand-reared African penguin chicks at the Western Cape’s De Hoop nature reserve, boosting efforts to start a new breeding colony of the seabirds at risk of extinction.
The only penguin that breeds in Africa, it was once SA’s most abundant seabird. But the population plunged to about 13,000 breeding pairs in 2019, from more than 1-million pairs in the 1920s, when their eggs started to be harvested for human consumption, government data shows...
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