African penguin sand art highlights extinction threat
To celebrate World Seabird Day, held annually on July 3, Big Bay Beach in Blouberg is boasting an African Penguin sand art installation commissioned by BirdLife South Africa and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB).
Dr David Roberts, SANCOBB’s clinical veterinarian, said the sand sculptures served as a “stark reminder” that while penguins have not yet gone extinct, they can be “here today and gone tomorrow”.
“The penguins are made out of sand to symbolise that they are disappearing. They’re here today, gone tomorrow unless we do something about it. These sand sculptures will slowly be eroded by the sea showing how fragile the penguin population is,” he said
July 3, marks the time when the extinct Great Auk Pinguinus impennis was last seen around 1844.
He said the African Penguin is predicted to be extinct in the wild by 2035 after its numbers have declined by 99% in the past 120 years.
It had taken Innocent Zungu, dubbed the “Super Sandman,” four days to complete the sand sculpture, however, he said by day three some people had already ruined his design.
He started working on it on Friday, June 28, and was set to be complete by Monday, July 1.
The task was to complete between 20 to 30 penguins looking in different directions, with Table Mountain being its backdrop.
Playing his favourite tunes while working, Mr Zungu said his creativity is inspired by what he imagined a colony of penguins would be doing, and so he created small ones, and large ones to depict their place in the colony.
