Sunday 17 April 2016
Lynne Arendse
The Waddle for a Week campaign is all about giving these beautiful birds a fighting chance at survival.(SABC)
They walked for 125 kilometres from Gansbaai in the Overberg to Boulders Beach in Simon's Town.
The Waddle for a week campaign, organised by Penguin Promises and the Two Oceans Aquarium, is now in its sixth year.
The numbers of the African penguin are dwindling fast. In the past 28 years, breeding pairs globally have declined by 61% and in 2009 the estimated population stood at just 25 000 pairs.
It has sparked concerns that the species could face extinction within the next 10 to 15 years.
The Waddle for a Week campaign is all about giving these beautiful birds a fighting chance at survival.
Penguin Promises, Hailey McClellan says, “We decided to focus on what you, me or the person on the street can do, what actions they can take in order to live more consciously. I'll give you some examples of penguin promises; my favourite one is to stop using plastic shopping bags. We use about 8 billion in this country every year and it’s wasteful.”
Human activity such as littering, research has found, is a threat to the African penguin.
Ushaka Sea World's Gabrielle Harris says, “We [are] all very quickly to blame the government or somebody else, rather than take responsibility for our own actions. When we focus on what we can do and do it together, if we try and resolve it we could change it. There is hope if we just start doing one thing at a time.”
Even though Waddle for a Week runs over six days, conservationists have vowed to step up their campaign to save the endangered African penguin.
source
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