African Penguins are seen on a beach at Simon's Town in Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 24, 2026. (Xinhua/Deng Bingxue)

CAPE TOWN, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- An outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, is threatening the survival of the critically endangered African penguins living off the coast of South Africa, local media reported.

The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) said 23 African penguins had tested positive for the disease since September 2025, with at least nine confirmed deaths among wild populations, media reports said Tuesday.

"For a population under immense pressure, the loss of even a few individuals is significant," the organization told an event marking Penguin Awareness Day on Jan. 20.

"A large-scale outbreak within a breeding colony would be devastating for the rapidly declining African penguin population," SANCCOB said.

It urged the public not to touch sick or dead penguins and to report sightings immediately to the organization or other relevant authorities.

In 2023, the global population of the African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) fell below 10,000 breeding pairs for the first time, prompting the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to list the species as "critically endangered" in 2024.

SANCCOB said in June 2025 that at the current rate, the African penguin will likely become extinct in the wild by 2035.

In a statement released in December 2025, the organization said over 1,000 African penguins had died from bird flu since 2018.

It added that 26 suspected cases of HPAI in African penguins had been reported since July 2025, when a new outbreak of the devastating disease started to affect seabirds in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. ■

African Penguins are seen on a beach at Simon's Town in Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 24, 2026. (Xinhua/Deng Bingxue)

African Penguins are seen on a beach at Simon's Town in Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 24, 2026. (Xinhua/Deng Bingxue)