ABOUT 200 adult penguins, 700 chicks and several cormorants were returned to Robben Island on Friday afternoon – the first batch of some 23000 birds which were being cared for on the mainland in the wake of the June 23 oil spill from the Panamanian tanker, the Treasure – to be taken home. The chicks, which were separated from their parents and were hand-reared on the mainland, are now ready to go to sea. Previously clean penguins were being released at Port Elizabeth to swim home, but with the danger of more oil leaking from the Treasure regarded as negligible clean birds are now to be released off the coast of Cape Town.
20