SANCCOB — Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds

SANCCOB (the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds) began with Althea Westphal treating oiled African penguins at her home in Cape Town, and was formally established in November 1968. Within a year it had helped secure a ban on collecting penguin eggs from the islands, then a major cause of the species' decline. It moved to rented premises in Wetton in 1971 and in 1983 to its current site beside the Rietvlei Nature Reserve in Table View, where a rebuilt seabird hospital opened in November 2018 with two intensive care units, a three-part wash bay for oiled birds, two surgical theatres, an X-ray room, an aviary and rehabilitation pens and pools. Since April 2017 it has also run the former SAMREC marine rehabilitation centre at Cape Recife, Gqeberha.

Both centres answer calls 24 hours a day for any seabird in distress, including African penguins, Cape gannets, cormorants, terns, gulls, albatrosses, petrels and pelicans, and send out their own rescue units where they can. SANCCOB also hand-rears abandoned penguin chicks and eggs, keeps seabird rangers and monitors at penguin colonies, prepares for and responds to oil spills, trains vets and volunteers and runs education programmes. In February 2026, after floods on Bird Island in Algoa Bay, 46 African penguin chicks were brought to its Gqeberha chick-rearing unit (Daily Maverick, March 2026). With BirdLife South Africa it has also gone to court to protect the penguins' feeding grounds.

Both centres are open to visitors seven days a week, 8am–5pm. Cape Town runs 45-minute tours on the hour from 9am to 3pm, with penguin feeding tours at 11am and 3pm; Gqeberha runs 30-minute tours every half hour, with feeding tours at 9.30am and 2.30pm. Behind-the-scenes, in-depth and virtual tours can also be booked through each centre.

Found a seabird? Call Cape Town on +27 21 557 6155 (after hours +27 78 638 3731) or Gqeberha on +27 41 583 1830 (after hours +27 64 019 8936). You can support SANCCOB by adopting a penguin or a penguin egg, sponsoring fish for chicks, volunteering or donating; it is a registered non-profit organisation, NPO 003-134.