Featured Image Credit: traveladdicts.net
Do you know about the plight of the African Penguin? The Association of Zoos and Aquariums does, and last month they gave it over to you guys— the internet, and the animal lovers community.
Before launching their Kickstarter campaign, “Invest in the Nest”, the AZA’s goal was clear: give African penguins a way to stay cool in the African heat. And since their rock-hard guano nests are gone thanks to a 19th century guano craze (the “white gold” substance was a highly sought after fertilizer, since it’s the penguin’s dried poop) diminished mostly all of their burrows away from the sun, the people behind the project had to get creative.
Creating lots of designs for nests, (since only penguins have the secret to the perfect one, and we’re pretty sure they weren’t chatty about their secrets) researchers eventually found the perfect couple of designs to suit the penguins’ needs.
That’s where the campaign came in! The AZA needed a little bit of help to fund the building and distribution of the new replacement nests to several of the african penguin colonies across South Africa and Namibia.
The nests are environment-friendly and designed to last just as long as the penguin-made ones (a long, long time) should have, the nests are made out of a special material that can keep the temperature just right for the penguins and for their eggs to be safe and sound from predators. These are also made by hand, because the special materials used in the nest make it impossible to recreate by machine, but they know it needs to be done!
Their original goal was posted on May 17th, hoping to raise $15,000 with a time limit of one month— and not only did they hit that goal by JUNE 8th (23 days!) but by the time of their last day, June 16th, they have reached OVER $19,000!
The Association has promised that every pledge over their goal that they receive, will go to helping more than their original hope of 15,000 nests. Now, we may be well on our way to seeing over 19,000 nests be built and placed to help this species not only keep surviving, but also thrive!
There’s still time to donate until midnight of June 16th EDT, and they have some great #InvestInTheNest incentives to offer until time runs out!