There are a couple of new birds on ice at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. A king penguin [Madiba] and a macaroni penguin [Mac] recently arrived from a rescue group in South Africa. When the two birds were found, zoo officials said, they were severely dehydrated and have since been nursed back to health. There are already king penguins on display at the zoo’s exhibit, but the zoo hopes to find a boyfriend for the female macaroni penguin.
“That will actually give us six species of penguins, which is tied for the most species of penguins in captivity in North America,” said the zoo’s Dan Cassidy. The birds went through a 30-day quarantine required by the U.S. government to make sure they weren’t carrying any disease.
Source: KETV.com & Action3News
These penguins had never known snow. Never seen it, certainly never slid their fat bowling-pin bodies down a bank of cool white. These were zoo penguins, born and bred. Their world was perpetually cool, but always indoors.
So keepers at the St. Louis Zoo were a little unsure how their penguins would react to seeing snow for the first time. They quietly ran a little experiment Tuesday. As more than 10 inches fell on the area, they selected which of the zoo’s 58 indoor penguins would go outside. They did not include the older birds, those with injuries or arthritis. They did not include the nesting or molting birds; it would be too stressful. They whittled the group to seven — six Kings and one Gentoo — and led them into the snow. They dove right in.
“That was unbelievable,” keeper Rick Smith said. “The reaction of the birds makes it worthwhile.”
Watch the video from KSDK Newschannel 5
Source: STLtoday.com
[via Penguins!]
The Port of Melbourne Corporation’s plan to monitor Phillip Island penguins rather than a colony at St Kilda, which is closer to bay dredging work, has outraged environmentalists.Earthcare St Kilda, a voluntary group that has monitored the St Kilda penguins for 20 years, said the port authority was trying to hide any negative effects from the public.
It believes the St Kilda colony of 1200 penguins is most at risk from the dredging because its primary food source, anchovy, is likely to be decimated by work scheduled for the Yarra River mouth at the time they usually spawn.
“It may not wipe out the whole lot but it will take a long time for the colony to recover,” Earthcare’s co-ordinator of penguin research, Zoe Hogg, said.
A baby penguin is the newest addition to the collection of fish and animals at the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration. The aquarium announced Thursday that the chick was born Jan. 13. It is expected to go on display in the spring. Aquarium scientists will not know the sex of the chick until a blood test is done in a few months.
The aquarium is part of a cooperative breeding program for African black-footed penguins with other zoos and aquariums, known as the Species Survival Plan. The aquarium has seen more than a dozen chicks successfully hatched over the past 18 years.
[via Penguins!]
The folks at Three Potato Four posted a sneak peak of a cute set of wooden bowling pins shaped like penguins. They will be available soon in their upcoming kids section. Look! They even have little berets! These are incredibly cute and most awesome.
The penguins on the sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia are laying, brooding eggs and hatching chicks in midsummer.
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