In Cape Town, a place of storms and wild seas, cleaning oil-soaked birds has become one of the rights of passage for environmentally concerned young people but it was a massive relocation of African Penguins that caught the world's attention. South Africa and Namibia are the only place where the species of penguin known as African Penguins, classified as vulnerable to extinction, are found. Earlier this year a Panamanian-registered ore carrier, the Treasure, precipitated an ecological crisis when it sank, leaking hundreds of tons of crude oil into the sea during the penguin's breeding season.
Penguins rely on their feathers for insulation.
When their feathers become oil-clogged they lose their insulative ability and the birds can experience hypothermia. As a result they stay out of the water and are unable to feed. Fortunately it also makes them quite easy to rescue. The first breeding colony to be affected was on Robben Island, a world heritage site, famous as the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Because of local conditions it was impractical to fence the birds off and, within a day of the sinking of the Treasure, thousands of penguins were covered by a heavy layer of oil.