5390 x 3563 px | 45,6 x 30,2 cm | 18 x 11,9 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
gennaio 2002
Ubicazione:
Robben Island, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Altre informazioni:
The Jackass Penguin Colony on Robben Island, near Cape Town, South Africa, The original colony of African Penguins on Robben Island was exterminated by about 1800. From then until 1968, when SANCCOB was started, penguins would only have occurred on the island as occasional vagrants. Robben Island was the place where SANCCOB released most oiled penguins after they had been cleaned. They left the island almost immediately, and headed back to their own colonies. One penguin, which had been oiled in 1979 on St Croix Island and brought to SANCCOB for cleaning, was released here and covered the 900 km back to its island in 11 days. In 1983, penguins recolonized Robben Island. The colony has grown rapidly, and there are now about 13 000 penguins which moult on the island – this means that they regard Robben Island as "home". In May 2000, just before the Treasure oil spill, there were 5 500 pairs of penguins on the island, making this the third largest colony for the species.
