Penguin ranger Yandisa Cwecwe.
Cute but feisty — that’s how Yandisa Cwecwe describes her work with endangered African penguins.
“And they bite a lot,” laughed the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (Sanccob) African penguin and seabird ranger, who is stationed at the Robben Island Museum.
World Ranger Day is celebrated worldwide on 31 July to commemorate rangers killed or injured in the line of duty and to celebrate the work they do to protect the planet’s natural treasures and cultural heritage.
Cwecwe, 30, grew up in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape, 45km from the sea, and it was there, during life science classes at school, that she cultivated an interest in the environment.
She chose to study zoology at Walter Sisulu University. Then, an “unforgettable” field trip to a marine protected area along the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast inspired Cwecwe to further her studies and specialise in marine biology. She holds a master’s degree.
“I was not exposed to the sea when I was young; I only got to go to the sea a lot when I was doing my undergraduate studies. I’m from a poor background, so our family would not take us to the beaches,” she said.
After graduating, she worked under the National Research Foundation as a research assistant intern for two years in a marine conservation genomics laboratory at Stellenbosch University, before taking up a post at Sanccob in 2021.
Cwecwe’s “passion and love” for African penguins began at Sanccob.
“I first worked in their research department for two years and, when a ranger position became available, I immediately applied,” she said. “I wanted to be on the ground, close to the penguins and other seabirds and to see where they were being rescued.”
It worries her that African penguins are in such big trouble. “I wanted to contribute towards the efforts of conserving marine life, especially the endangered African penguin …
“It’s just me being passionate about contributing towards the effort of saving them because they are endangered, and will soon be regarded as critically endangered, because their numbers are going down. If we lose them now, we won’t find them anywhere in the world, so we have to protect them.”
Sanccob said its rangers play a pivotal role in the preservation of the African penguin population, which is decreasing at 7.9% a year. If their decline continues, the iconic seabirds could be extinct in the wild as soon as 2035.
While Cwecwe is the only Sanccob penguin and seabird ranger on Robben Island, she collaborates daily with other research teams, also based on the island. They are all working towards a common goal — to preserve the terrestrial and marine environment and save wildlife.
Her typical day involves conducting field patrols to check for injured, sick or oiled birds. During the breeding season, she checks nests for eggs or chicks and monitors them closely to ensure the chicks are not underweight and that they are not abandoned.
“We are always monitoring the chicks on the island especially for being underweight,” she said. “Penguin food sources have diminished so much due to the overfishing of sardines and anchovies that penguin parents must travel far distances to find food, often leaving their chicks alone for very long periods of time, sometimes not making it back at all.”
This makes the chicks and eggs vulnerable to predators, bad weather and starvation, she pointed out. “With the penguin numbers already being so low, our main responsibility is to make sure they survive, and this means rescuing them, if needs be. We then send them by boat to Sanccob’s chick-rearing unit in Table View.”
There, the chicks are hand-reared for release back into the wild. This is done with the aim of bolstering the declining wild population, Cwecwe explained.
In March, BirdLife South Africa and Sanccob initiated legal action against the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment to implement biologically meaningful no-catch zones around six breeding sites so that the penguins do not have to compete with commercial purse-seine fishing vessels who are fishing in their hunting grounds. That court date has been set for 22 October to 24 October.
Sanccob actively supports its conservation partners, namely CapeNature, City of Cape Town, SANParks and Robben Island Museum, who employ 11 rangers at five important African penguin breeding colonies in South Africa.
In the Eastern Cape, rangers monitor seabirds on Bird Island in Algoa Bay, and in the Western Cape, rangers monitor the Robben Island, Dassen Island, Stony Point and Simon’s Town colonies.
On average, 500 to 600 African penguin chicks and 300 to 400 eggs, which are incubated and hatched, are brought to Sanccob each year by rangers across all the penguin colonies. These numbers have increased by 256% in the last seven years.
To become a ranger, Sanccob seeks individuals with special qualities “including passion and dedication as this is a hard and physical job”. A ranger needs to have basic computer skills, be able to collect data and enter it, as well as formulate well-written monthly reports.
“The best part of my job is that I get to contribute to preserving our beautiful and precious planet and help to save the African penguin and all the seabirds that populate our coastline,” Cwecwe said.
“Becoming a ranger has been very rewarding for me and I encourage anyone who wants to become a ranger to work hard at school; follow their passion and love for animals; be open to working closely with others and apply to Sanccob today.”
Her career path is “something that is not known where I’m coming from”, she added. “I see kids from my hometown, when they see social media posts about me, they also get interested in wanting to follow the same career.
“My family didn’t know there was something like this [marine biology] at university, at our homes they only thought about teaching, nursing or becoming medical doctors. It’s an honour for me to be an example to the young ones back at home.”