Penguin Awareness Day & Meet Our Jewels “Rose Quartz the African Penguin”!
A precious African Penguin, photographed by Azi Sharif
On this World Penguin Awareness Day, we're thrilled to share the inspiration behind our new Wildlife Jewels® painting in progress, a precious African Penguin whose species is sadly on the brink of extinction.
Meet “Rose Quartz the African Penguin”!
Rose Quartz is a stunningly beautiful African Penguin we had the pleasure of meeting and photographing at a Wildlife Sanctuary.
The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus), known for its captivating pink glands and monogamous nature, is sadly on the verge of extinction.
From a population of near 4 million in the 19th century to only around 10,000 breeding pairs estimated in 2023, these precious birds could vanish from the wild in just over a decade if the current population decline persists.
These precious Penguins confront significant human-induced threats including overexploitation of eggs, overfishing, entanglement in fishing gear, and habitat pollution from petrochemicals due to oil spills and shipwrecks.