Cape Recife is the nature reserve that SAMREC calls home and Timbit was the African penguin that we "adopted" after he was rescued and taken to SAMREC.
I mentioned the Flying Penguin Cafe where we had a bite to eat, and told you about how we came to adopt and name Timbit. What I didn't tell you about was the amazing work that this organization does.
Since those posts I have had the opportunity to visit and observe SAMREC in action several times. Each experience has taught me something new about their organization and the dedication of their volunteers.
SAMREC employs just 2 staff. The rest of the staff are volunteers. They all give of their time selflessly to run education programs, fund raise, manage the facilities, treat and feed penguins, provide rescue services, participate in community outreach events and all the other things that dedicated non-profit volunteers do.
If a member of the public finds a penguin, bird, or marine animal in trouble, help from SAMREC is just a phone call away.
The day after my parents arrived to visit in October 2011 we went to Shoney's beach, not far from our house. While the kids were playing in the surf, climbing the rocks and searching for shells, I had my camera out looking for cool photo opportunities.
This is a photo I took of a young cape cormorant.
So, I called SAMREC to let them know about him. It was kind of like placing a call to 911emergency services (10111 here in PE). They wanted to know what kind of bird, where he was, what my name and number were and what I was wearing so they could locate me. They asked me to stay with the bird, if I could, and told me that their volunteers would be there as soon as possible wearing bright blue SAMREC t-shirts.
At the time I didn't know what kind of bird it was, not being overly familiar with South African bird species, but I knew that it was behaving very un-birdlike. His sides were heaving as he breathed, his eyes were closed and he showed no interest in moving for the first 15 min. that I was sitting with him. My children and others were making noise and climbing on the rocks near him. Due to his colouring he was very difficult to see so, I stayed near him and warned those that came close, that he was there.
After about 20 min. he started showing some signs of life. He opened his eyes, stretched his wings and jumped down, from the rock he was on, to one closer to the water. He rested a few more minutes and then he jumped in the water.
Great, I thought, as he swam away. Here, I've called SAMREC to come and rescue this poor bird and he's swum away. Not 2 minutes after he had swam off the volunteers from SAMREC arrived.
I met them on the beach to explain what had happened and apologize for troubling them. They were very gracious, said it was no trouble at all, and that they were just glad he was able to get back into the water. What we didn't know was, while we were talking, the bird had swum out, gotten tired and come back to shore on the other side of the inlet. After the volunteers started to walk away, a young boy whom I had spoken to, while I was watching the bird, ran up and told me that the bird was on the other side of the inlet. The SAMREC volunteers got right to work.
One of the volunteers very quietly and cautiously approached the bird.
He did his best to get away from her, but he couldn't fly. The volunteer gently caught him and did a quick test to see if there were any injuries. Then, they put him in a pet carrier. After a quick report to me that he seemed to be exhausted and not injured, they took the cormorant to SAMREC.
A few days later I visited SAMREC with my parents, brother, niece and nephew. We discovered that our volunteer tour guide had been on the other end of the phone when I had called about the cormorant. He told us that the cormorant had been exhausted and dehydrated when he came in. They examined him, fed him, gave him some fluids to perk him up and a day later he flew off, healthy and rested.
So, once rescued birds are able to fly off again, they do but, penguins don't fly. Penguins can be released in two ways, by boat and by beach. Timbit was taken back to the island by boat.
On December 3rd, 2011, we got to experience a beach release. In December, the United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Durban, South Africa and the Sustainable Seas Trust (a multi-national African trust dedicated to charitable, socioeconomic, scientific, educational and philanthropic purposes) declared December 3rd, 2011 as Sea Pledge Day.
On Sea Pledge Day, SAMREC coordinated with the South East African Climate Consortium Student Forum (SEACC SF) to host Sea Pledge Day at Pollock beach.
They kicked off the day with a penguin release. Please pardon the clip length, but penguins are pretty slow on land :)
. Next post: How they do it.
