Transcript
Dr. Robin Gansert (0:01)
Welcome to Robin's Nest. So many of us have a deep connection with the animals around us and want to protect them from the pets in our homes, to endangered species in the wild. That's why I joined American Humane. As one of the oldest and most effective animal protection groups, we help billions of animals around the world. Join us as we explore how we can build a more humane world together. Hi, I'm Dr. Robin Gansert and this is an episode of Robin's Nest. Yes, we are live on the ground here in Gorges, South Africa. We're actually at Stoney Point where we just released, yes, just released 12 precious creatures, African penguins, back into the wild. Many of these creatures were raised from chicks that were rescued, rescued eggs from this great beach at Stony Point. They were rehabilitated at Sancop, raised. And then today we have the privilege and honor of releasing them back into the wild. There are so many stories in this episode of Robin's Nest. We're thrilled that you're here with us and you get to see some precious creatures. Yes. Live in action. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Robin's Nest. We will be right back.
Dr. David Roberts (1:19)
So I'm Dr. David Roberts. I'm the clinical vet at Sanccob. My job is looking after the penguins that we have in rehabilitation, making sure that they're healthy enough to be released back into the wild. Today we came to Stony point to release 12 penguins that have been rehabilitated at Sanccob. And we're giving them a second chance. We've put them back onto the beach and they've swum away into the ocean. We hope that they will do very well out there. So we released 10 blues. Those are the juvenile penguins at the age when they would normally fledge from the nests and go out into the sea on their own. And two adults. The adults are quite interesting because they were injured penguins that were brought to Sanccob and required veterinary attention. We treated them in our ICU in our seabed hospital until they were well enough to be released again. And the youngsters were mostly rescued as eggs. So a lot of them come from this colony. They were rescued by our seabird rangers when their parents abandoned them. They were incubated in our dark penguin incubators, raised in the chick rearing unit and hand raised until they were strong enough to go. They're about 90 days old and they're at that age where you would now let them go into the wild and normally they would start foraging for themselves. African penguins are an endangered species and we have them as our species that we most interested in because they are an indicator for the environment. They're a top predator in the environment here in the ocean ecosystem of South Africa. And we look after them both because they're charismatic and they draw a lot of attention to the rest of the ecosystem and because they are going extinct. Unfortunately, penguin numbers are dropping very quickly, and if we don't do anything to help them, or everything we can to help them, they could go extinct by 2035. So it's an urgent call to do everything we can to look after the species. So it would be a much sadder world if the African penguin went extinct. They play an important role in the ecosystem. They're top predators. They hunt, they recycle nutrients and they move it to other areas. But also the loss of the species shows us that we failed in our role to protect the entire ocean ecosystem. So we call them an indicator species because it would be very sad news. We know that if they disappear, lots of other species are suffering as well. Personally, I've always wanted to be a conservationist and a vet, and this is just one of those opportunities where I can do both. I love working for Sanccob because we work for endangered species, we're doing impactful conservation work, and I can do veterinary work so I can do surgeries. I can run a hospital and put birds back into the wild where they can play a very important role. I've been inspired by my parents, who are both ecologists and inspirational single people making a difference in Africa. There are a lot of inspirational conservationists working with different species throughout the continent. And the message they often tell is, you can make a difference yourself. If you're not going to do it, maybe nobody will. So it's important to get involved. So we're at Stony Point Nature Reserve in Betty's Bay. We're very close to Cape Town, and it's one of the few African penguin colonies on the mainland in South Africa. It's also a reserve, which is important for the rest of the ecosystem. We've got a marine protected area here as well, and it's one of the cornerstone areas that Cape Nature looks after, protecting the indigenous ecosystems of the Western Cape. We have amazing volunteers. A lot of our work at Sanccob is done by volunteers who spend their own personal time looking after penguins and cleaning. And our biggest message to them is thank you. Without their help, we wouldn't have been able to release these 12 birds today and the hundreds of others that we release every year. They are the cornerstone of the workforce that help Sanccob do what we do. So we released 12 African penguins this morning and they've just swum off into the ocean. Ten of them were chicks and most of those were rescued as eggs, some of them from this colony, when the eggs were abandoned by their parents due to an extreme heat wave. And then the other two adults, they came in with injuries. One of them had quite a nasty injured eye and we needed to medically treat that. So they went through the veterinary department's care. They were looked after in our seabird hospital, and finally they're healthy enough to be reintroduced back into the wild, so they've got a second chance. So we have rangers who work here with Cape Nature that look after the colony. They're our eyes on the ground. They will rescue any bird that's in distress, that needs human intervention and bring them to us as quickly as possible after they're stabilized so that we can treat them and release them again. So what's very important for any conservation project is education. We need to be able to spread the message and get people emotionally involved in the work that we do. We've recently built a new centre where that's possible. So at Sanccob, at our rehabilitation facility, people can now come to the facility in comfortable environment, children can watch our home pen birds and learn more about the ocean ecosystem. And in a beautiful environment with a beautiful view of Table Mountain, we hope that it will attract more people to hear our message. I think that there are many avenues that people can learn more about Sanccob. They can follow us on social media, we've got accounts in all sorts of different platforms. They can Visit our website, www.sanccob.co.za. the African Penguins facing a lot of different threats, multifactorial influences that are really reducing the numbers of penguins in the wild. We are most worried about the lack of food that's available to them due to commercial, unsustainable fishing practices and other factors. The fish populations are very low and if without fish, they won't survive and they won't be able to raise their chicks. But there are other factors as well. Global climate change plays an important role in the whole ocean ecosystem, which affects their ability to breed, their ability to raise young and find food. There's disturbance. And that can be everything from people disturbing the breeding colonies to fishing and ship traffic as well. The more the ocean is used by people, the more disturbance can be a problem, and then pollution plays a very big role as well, and that we often think about. Oil spills, they're a big risk to, to all seabirds. But pollution from pharmaceuticals and wastewater runoff can also affect the ecosystem that they rely on. And finally, as a vet, I'm also very worried about disease. We've had big outbreaks of novel diseases and when a species is suffering, disease can also play a huge role in reducing their ability to survive well in the wild.