Ruth Soroson - Writer

THE PENGUIN RESCUE IN THE OIL SPILL OFF CAPE TOWN 2000

 An iron ore ship that had been in trouble off the Western Cape Coast for the past few days, the Treasure, sank, leaving a twenty square mile oil slick.

Part of the book takes place in Cape Town during this Treasure Oil Spill of 2000. The details given are intensive and factual.

At this time thousands of penguins from Dassen Island and  Robben Island were oiled and endangered and had to be individually cleaned by volunteers at the rehabilitation Centre run by SANNCOB, the South African National Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds.

At this time, also, thousands of penguins were transported to a place almost hundreds of miles along the South African coast; and swam back to their homes.  The world followed their progress with a great deal of inspiration and excitement. France had tagged three of the birds with extremely lightweight transmitters and news stations world wide would report their progress.

The main characters in the book become involved in the intensive work of cleaning penguins and also in the journeys of the three penguins who are leading thousands of others for hundreds of km along the coast back to their home islands. They had been taken to Port Elizabeth by trucks and had been put back into the sea. The logic was that by the time they swam back the water would be clean.

The writer consulted with Nicole Heiman , organizer of Community Environmental Education Project (CEEP)  in South Africa who had been a volunteer at the Treasure Oil Spill who shared her detailed personal account of the work in SANCCOB.