Collaborating to Protect Wild Penguins in South Africa

Late last year, Aquarium penguin trainer Nick Vitale was among a team of staff and volunteers at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), working to rescue and rehabilitate critically endangered wild African penguins. Established in 1968 by conservationist Althea Westphal in response to the Esso Essen oil spill, SANCCOB works to save native seabirds across South Africa. The Aquarium’s collaboration with SANCCOB is made possible through our membership in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Saving Animals from Extinction (SAFE) program for African penguins. As a member, the Aquarium participates in educational and conservation initiatives for African penguins, including field conservation work with SANCCOB.  

Nick arrived at SANCCOB in mid-December—right in the midst of breeding and nesting season for African penguins. There, he was placed in the rehab and ICU pens of rescued penguins, providing daily care such as feeding, weighing, administering medication, swimming, and handling the birds. Thanks to his prior experience working at the Aquarium, Nick was able to jump right in.  

“I had applied to the ‘Animal Professional Experience’ program, which was an accelerated opportunity available for professionals in the zoo and aquarium field,” Nick said. His training involved shadowing staff members at SANCCOB, who showed him the ropes. “By the third week, I was on my own running one of the main pens.”  

While working with SANCCOB, Nick was also able to visit a wild African penguin colony on Boulders Beach, Simons Town, which is part of Table Mountain National Park. Boulders is one of the two wild African penguin colonies on the mainland and one of the largest, numbering over 3,000 individuals. SANCCOB typically treats an average of 2,500 sick and injured penguins from these colonies each year—December is the start of summer in South Africa, and the facility can be “inundated” with juvenile birds during nesting season. “It was even faster-paced than a fast-paced facility like the Aquarium,” Nick said.  

Seeing the wild penguins in their natural habitat displaying many of the same behaviors as those here in our penguin colony at the Aquarium—including making their iconic loud calls—was “incredible information” to take home, Nick said. “It was also interesting to be working at SANCCOB and see firsthand the issues that were causing the penguins to need assistance—the biggest by far being malnourishment,” he added. “Overfishing of their food sources is still thought to be the leading cause of the species’ decline.”  

During the weeks Nick was at SANCCOB, he was able to help rehabilitate a group of five African penguins and release them back into the mainland colony, which was the highlight of the trip. Nick even “adopted” one of the penguins he’d worked to release—a souvenir that helps support SANCCOB’s mission. 

Now that he’s home in New England, Nick is back caring for our African penguins and bringing some of the knowledge he gained at SANCCOB to the team. “This exchange helps connect us to the bigger conservation of the species and what is going on in South Africa,” he said. “It says something about the Aquarium as an organization that we can have an impact so many miles from Boston.”  

While African penguins continue to face grave threats—the species is expected to be extinct in the wild by 2035—Nick sees efforts like African penguin SAFE and SANCCOB’s work as an opportunity to affect positive change.  

“Our goal as a team is to inspire guests to want to help African and southern rockhopper penguins through our work,” Nick said. “Any support that goes toward the Aquarium or our collaborators like SANCCOB makes a difference.”