South Africa: Penguins starving as extinction risk grows

At the start of the 20th century, millions of African penguins lived along South Africa's coasts. Today, only around 10,000 remain. Guano extraction and the mass collection of eggs caused populations to collapse dramatically by the mid-1900s.

Today, overfishing is driving their decline. With sardines — their main food source — increasingly scarce, many penguins are starving. Larger marine protected areas are meant to help, but they have sparked conflict with local fisheries. Meanwhile, conservation groups are rescuing and rehabilitating weakened birds.