SANCCOB Chick Bolstering Project

This fundraiser is organised by Penguins International.

Tax deductible

Penguins International is proud to launch this fundraiser in support of our partners at SANCCOB (The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds). SANCCOB was established in 1968 in Cape Town and is known worldwide for its esteemed rescue and rehabilitation efforts of ill, abandoned, injured and oiled seabirds and releasing them back into the wild. Including the endangered African penguin!

With your help, we'd love to support SANCCOB's efforts in expanding its chick-rearing facility and incubation room.

Why Penguin Eggs?

SANCCOB has a Seabird Ranger project where they work closely with conservation authorities to monitor African penguin nests. Interventions are made when it is clear that the parents have abandoned their eggs and/or chicks. In some penguin colonies, abandonment occurs when the adults start molting and cannot go to sea to provide for their chicks, extreme weather events, and food scarcity. SANCCOB's Rangers rescue these eggs and transport them to SANCCOB for artificial incubation, hand rearing, and round-the-clock care until the penguins can be reintroduced back into the wild.

If we want to save penguins, we need to give SANCCOB the space for more incubators! The current Chick Rearing Unit is 579 square feet (53 square meters) and houses four incubators holding only 40 eggs each, limiting the number of eggs they can accept to 160. In 2022, SANCCOB has received 417 African penguin eggs, with more on the way. We hope to help SANCCOB build a larger space, at least 2368 square feet (220 square meters), to accommodate the ever-growing number of rescued eggs and chicks.

Raised to be Released

SANCCOB has successfully released almost 8,000 African penguin chicks back into the wild, and to date, more than 1,000 African penguin eggs have been rescued and admitted to their facility. When some of our friends at SANCCOB rescue and release penguins, other staff members serve local and international guests through educational programming. SANCCOB teaches African penguin lessons with local schools and Learners with Special Education Needs (LSEN) programs. We aim to raise $10,000 for SANCCOB's Chick Bolstering Project. This facility expansion will provide more space for African penguins, chicks, and eggs and create learning opportunities for penguin lovers of all kinds.

Penguins International is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to preserving and protecting penguins worldwide. To accomplish this mission, we are actively engaging in penguin conservation projects to advance knowledge and understanding of penguins through scientific research and promote awareness of penguins' threats by providing conservation education to the public.

Let's help SANCCOB save African penguins from extinction by supporting their Chick Bolstering Program!