Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.
Institute of Research and Rehabilitation of Marine Animals, Cariacica, Espírito Santo, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2018 Nov 7;13(11):e0205126. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205126. eCollection 2018.
The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) population is estimated at 25,000 breeding pairs, approximately 5% of that at the start of the 20th century, and the species is currently classified as Endangered. In the last two decades, the hand-rearing of penguin chicks that were abandoned by their parents due to oil spills or other circumstances has become a valuable conservation tool to limit mortality and to bolster the population at specific colonies. We summarize and evaluate the techniques employed by the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) to incubate and hand-rear African penguin eggs and chicks. From 2012 to 2016, a total of 694 eggs and 2819 chicks were received by SANCCOB's Chick Rearing Unit. It was estimated that 13% of the eggs were infertile, and 81% of the fertile eggs hatched successfully. The overall release rate for chicks was 77%, with a higher release rate for chicks that were pre-emptively removed (93%) followed by chicks that had been abandoned by their parents (78%), chicks admitted due to avian pox lesions (61%), chicks that hatched from artificially-incubated eggs (57%), and chicks admitted due to injuries or deformities (25%). Rescuing and hand-rearing eggs and chicks has been a successful strategy for African penguins, and might be also applicable for the conservation of other threatened seabird species whose population are critically low or during natural or anthropogenic events that could have disastrous population impacts (e.g. oil spills, disease outbreaks, catastrophic weather events, strong El Niño years, etc.).
非洲企鹅（Spheniscus demersus）的数量估计为 25,000 对繁殖对，大约是 20 世纪初的 5%，该物种目前被列为濒危物种。在过去的二十年中，由于石油泄漏或其他情况而被父母遗弃的企鹅幼崽的人工饲养已成为一种宝贵的保护工具，可以限制死亡率并在特定的殖民地增加种群数量。我们总结和评估了南部非洲沿海鸟类保护基金会（SANCCOB）用于孵化和人工饲养非洲企鹅蛋和幼崽的技术。从 2012 年到 2016 年，SANCCOB 的雏鸟饲养单位共收到了 694 枚蛋和 2819 只幼崽。据估计，有 13%的蛋是不育的，而 81%的可育蛋成功孵化。雏鸟的总体释放率为 77%，提前被取出的雏鸟（93%）的释放率高于被父母遗弃的雏鸟（78%）、因禽痘病变而入院的雏鸟（61%）、从人工孵化的蛋中孵化出来的雏鸟（57%）和因受伤或畸形而入院的雏鸟（25%）。拯救和人工饲养蛋和幼崽是非洲企鹅的一项成功策略，也可能适用于保护其他濒危海鸟物种，这些物种的数量非常低，或者在可能对种群产生灾难性影响的自然或人为事件（例如石油泄漏、疫情爆发、灾难性天气事件、强厄尔尼诺年等）中。
