Hunt on for SA penguin killer

JOHANNESBURG - A serial killer is on the loose among the penguin population in the Cape Peninsula, writes John Carlin. The killer had claimed nine victims since 24 September at Boulders, a colony of threatened jackass penguins near Simonstown naval base, using a blunt object to beat the birds to death. Hendrik van der Merwe, a retired naval officer, found all the dead birds and persuaded the police to open the case after taking the first two bodies to a vet for an autopsy and establishing that the penguins had been clubbed to death.