African penguins face critical population decline driven by prey depletion from commercial fishing and oil spill vulnerability, creating severe individual and population welfare challenges.
African penguin welfare involves chronic food stress from prey depletion and acute crises from oil spills. Adult penguins making progressively longer foraging trips to find prey depleted by fishing experience physiological stress and chick starvation when unable to return with adequate food. Oil spill events coat feathers, destroying insulation and buoyancy, causing hypothermia and organ damage. SANCCOB rehabilitation of oiled penguins is a direct welfare intervention that has saved tens of thousands of individuals. Establishing prey exclusion zones around breeding colonies addresses the chronic welfare cost of food stress.