Celebrate our seventeen ‘flockstars’ on International African Penguin Awareness Day (IAPAD), on Sat., Oct. 11 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Zoo! You won’t want to miss six-month-old Sparrow’s very first IAPAD!
Penguin enthusiasts can join us in Water’s Edge: Africa for crafts, games, and other activities available throughout the day. Don’t miss the keeper demonstrations during penguin feeding times at 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., as well as a walkabout with a penguin named Napoleon at 11 a.m. There’s no cost to attend IAPAD events, but advance daytime admission tickets are required and can be purchased at cmzoo.org.
In 2024, African penguins were officially uplisted to ‘critically endangered’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, with the number of wild breeding pairs falling below 10,000.
If current trends continue, these charismatic birds could be extinct in the wild by 2035. The wild African penguin population is dropping at a rate of nearly 8 percent per year, but thanks to support from CMZoo members and guests, these charismatic birds have a better chance of survival in the wild. Conservationists, with support from CMZoo members and guests, provide hope.
Since 2010, CMZoo members and guests have contributed more than $$200,000 to Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB saves seabirds) in support of African penguin conservation.
In 2020, the Zoo deepened its commitment by joining AZA African Penguin SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction), a collaborative program supported by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Every visit to CMZoo is conservation in action, because every visit and every membership contributes around one million dollars every 20 months to the Zoo’s Quarters for Conservation program, supporting efforts to save wildlife around the world.