Ford Wildlife Foundation Helping Save African Penguin
The Ford Wildlife Foundation donated a Ford Ranger 4×4 double cab to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds in February, part of its efforts to help save the African Penguin.
SANCCOB is a leading South African nonprofit geared toward the rescue and rehabilitation of seabirds like the cape gannet, cape cormorant, and bank cormorant. The African Penguin is a bird of particular focus, and SANCCOB played a key role in the rescue of 40,000 such birds during the MV Treasure oil spill 20 years ago. The African Penguin population has declined 95 percent over the past two centuries, falling from 4 million in 1800 to just 20,000 today. If this continues unabated, this species will be extinct within the next two decades.
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“We’re in a race against time here,” said SANCCOB Resource Development Manager Hedwich Tulp. “So we’re incredibly grateful to the FWF and their loan of our amazing Ford Ranger, which is instrumental in allowing us to carry out some of our most important work, often in remote locations with challenging terrain.”
Over the two years that the Ranger is on loan to SANCCOB, the Ford dealership network in South Africa will provide service and maintenance as needed. According to Ford Wildlife Fund manager Lynda du Plessis, the organization has 25 Ranger trucks out on loan to partner organizations, and the dealership network at large takes care of all of those vehicles.
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The SANCCOB rehabilitation center in Port Elizabeth sits 12 miles away from Ford’s Struandale Engine Plant. In February, as part of a two-day media event, participants made the trip out to the center to learn about the efforts being made to save the African Penguin and the other seabirds.
Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.