Cape Town celebrated World Penguin Day and shared some photographs of the penguins found on the shores of city beaches. The pictures were shared on the Cape Town Travel Instagram page.
The Instagram post consists of videos and pictures of rookery, swimming in the ocean and running through the beaches. With their family and the little ones, the jackass penguins found in Cape Town provided a mesmerising view to capture.
While sharing the images, Cape Town Travel captioned, “Celebrating World Penguins Day with the cutest penguins in Cape Town! Mention someone who would love to swim with penguins in Cape Town!”
Boulders Beach is the place where people can watch for the penguins and can play with them and pet them too. The place is known for the most famous and arguably cutest birds, ‘The Africa Penguin’. One cannot resist these waddling amazing birds, which is a good thing as they need your full attention.
However, South Africa’s penguins are under threat from the loss of habitat, declining fish and their ever-encroaching human neighbours.
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Notably, every year more than 60,000 visitors flock to Simon’s Town to photograph and watch the famous Boulders Beach penguins. This visit leads to more money to help in boosting the penguin conservation efforts through South African National Parks (SANParks).
African penguins are known as Jackass penguins. Due to their distinctive braying, they are the only penguins found on the continent. Although, they breed in colonies stretching from southern Namibia to Port Elizabeth, the story of how they came to call Boulders Beach, as their home is one of the remarkable urban colonisations.
World Penguin Day is celebrated worldwide on 25 April. It recognizes the unique nature of penguins and their importance to the world’s ecosystems. The day highlights the threats penguins face from climate change and fishing. It showcases the efforts of conversationists and campaigners to protect the penguins.
History of the World Penguin Day recorded its first celebration in 1972 when Gerry Wallace wrote the event on his wife Aleta’s calendar in Alamogordo, California. They later brought the celebration to the Naval Weapons Center in Ridgecrest, California where the Penguin Patrol made the news. April 25th is also the date that the Adelie penguins begin their migration northward towards Antarctica.