From now to 13 October you can track their perilous journey in which they will lose over half of their body weight. BirdLife SA has called on everyone to unite in this campaign to supporting the African Penguin by tracking them on the thepenguinrun.com website.
People can also back their favourite penguin by following them on their unique Twitter handles and sparing some tweets of encouragement. The leader-board will show which penguin is winning in relation to the total kilometres they have clocked.
The tracking project, an initiative from the Save our Seabirds Festival and BirdLife South Africa, aims to gather vital data which will aid not only in the conservation of the African Penguin, but of our oceans as well. “African Penguins are an environmental indicator species, and they allow us to measure the health of our oceans”, says Dr Ross Wanless of the BirdLife South Africa Seabird Division. “By understanding where they go and protecting those sites, we will hopefully restore balance to the ecosystem as a whole”.
They may not hear you (penguins don’t speak human, that’s ridiculous), but by spreading the word you are taking part in something that could very well save this little guy from extinction, and in turn, the broader marine ecosystem.
www.thepenguinrun.com
