SEA LIFE London Aquarium London Aquarium

Fallax said:
Theres a few crested species kept outside too, Whipsnade has rockhoppers and Folly Farm has macaronis, there might be one or two I'm missing there as well.
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I wasn't counting them seeing as it was Gentoo being discussed, admittedly I also included kings in,but it's only whipsnade that can be said to be doing okay with rockhoppers,all the places doing okay with them seem to be places that keep them in exposed cool locations.
 
A demo was organised this weekend for the release of 14 Gentoo Penguins, by Freedom for Animals, supported by Born Free and the Express newspaper. It was attended by 250 to 300 people including Chris Packham, naturally. They said that it's wrong to house the Penguins in a basement without natural light and no fresh air. I,personally have never seen this exhibit, so I won't make any comment.
 
The exhibit I have always thought is rather small, it consists of two rooms, one completely filled in with ice with a viewing bubble, and the other mostly a pool, that goes down only around two to three meters at a stretch. Here are images of each room
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Strathmorezoo said:
A demo was organised this weekend for the release of 14 Gentoo Penguins, by Freedom for Animals, supported by Born Free and the Express newspaper. It was attended by 250 to 300 people including Chris Packham, naturally. They said that it's wrong to house the Penguins in a basement without natural light and no fresh air. I,personally have never seen this exhibit, so I won't make any comment.
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Where would they even be released in the first place? All these organizations don't actually care about these animals materially, they just care about satisfying their own egos with these oversimplistic "zoos are prisons" platitudes and grifting all the while. HACKS.
 
DCzootripper said:
The exhibit I have always thought is rather small, it consists of two rooms, one completely filled in with ice with a viewing bubble, and the other mostly a pool, that goes down only around two to three meters at a stretch. Here are images of each room
749143fd-aa48-41c7-abe5-e47b2fb780c2.jpg
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Is that.....a screen in the exhibit? Weird...

I have been aware of this particular campaign for a while... but something I am surprised that nobody has said thus far...
The Gentoo Penguin is one of the penguin species found closest to the South Pole... And as it goes the closer to either pole you are, the more polarised your seasons get. So in the wild, the Gentoo Penguin will have times where there is near-constant sunlight, and similarly the other half of the year will have no sun at all to speak of.
And the ARAs in charge seem to imply at least that these penguins in the wild have a good amount of natural light year round... when in actuality in the wild there are times when they have little light whatsoever!

I do agree - this is an exhibit which has its problems - at least, from what I can see here... but I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet.
 
StoppableSan said:
Where would they even be released in the first place? All these organizations don't actually care about these animals materially, they just care about satisfying their own egos with these oversimplistic "zoos are prisons" platitudes and grifting all the while. HACKS.
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I do agree that I was too confused about where they were planning on 'releasing' these penguins, I am sure that even if they do get protesters, they will probably just send them back to Edinburgh zoo where they came from, which personally I am fine with, seen as that is a much better exhibit, it is outside and London zoo already has penguins, so it isn't like there will be an absence of penguins in London.
 
DCzootripper said:
I do agree that I was too confused about where they were planning on 'releasing' these penguins, I am sure that even if they do get protesters, they will probably just send them back to Edinburgh zoo where they came from, which personally I am fine with, seen as that is a much better exhibit, it is outside and London zoo already has penguins, so it isn't like there will be an absence of penguins in London.
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...potentially draw up a 'plan' for a penguin sanctuary that will hypothetically exist somewhere in the future... like all the plans they've had for the whale and dolphin sanctuaries over the years that never materialised...?
 
Alwaysevergreen said:
Aren't the ones at the Deep in Hull, also kept in a similar exhibit?
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Not dissimilar, but if I recall correctly the Hull exhibit does at least have some natural light.
 
Strathmorezoo said:
A demo was organised this weekend for the release of 14 Gentoo Penguins, by Freedom for Animals, supported by Born Free and the Express newspaper. It was attended by 250 to 300 people including Chris Packham, naturally. They said that it's wrong to house the Penguins in a basement without natural light and no fresh air. I,personally have never seen this exhibit, so I won't make any comment.
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This saga’s been running for years, I commented on this near identical story last year! My opinion of the exhibit hasn’t changed either - it’s godawful!
 
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It's yet more grift from protestors who are more caught up in the idea of protesting something rather than actually doing anything productive.

It's not a fantastic exhibit and was fairly mediocre when it opened (and it's only become even more obviously dated since). But the penguins are happy, it fits with guidelines set for the species and as @dillotest0 quite rightly points out, controlled lighting that is specifically designed to replicate something more similar to their natural environments is quite clearly not a bad thing. Not to mention the obvious - London is nowhere near cold enough for them, so of course they are kept inside. As I'm sure we all know and have seen in other collections, it is standard for sub-polar species like Gentoo and King.

I have my own opinions on the aquarium as a whole (in an ideal world it would close and either Sea Life or another aquarium open somewhere more appropriate in the city) and that exhibit is to me pretty damn dreadful. But it still serves the penguins fairly well, and despite what Born Free continues to insist penguins to actually require different needs to humans.

I did hear yesterday that this protest in particular, when presented with the facts around BIAZA and EAZA standards, claimed that both those institutes are corrupt and part of some grand conspiracy to allow zoos to hold animals in inhumane conditions. Certainly someone like Packham knows that to be untrue, but they evidently don't care - it's no different to standard political grifting. Anything for attention, and anything to try and mislead the public

I suspect they will be at Regent's Park soon enough claiming it's cruel to keep Aye-ayes in the dark...
 
dillotest0 said:
Is that.....a screen in the exhibit? Weird...

I have been aware of this particular campaign for a while... but something I am surprised that nobody has said thus far...
The Gentoo Penguin is one of the penguin species found closest to the South Pole... And as it goes the closer to either pole you are, the more polarised your seasons get. So in the wild, the Gentoo Penguin will have times where there is near-constant sunlight, and similarly the other half of the year will have no sun at all to speak of.
And the ARAs in charge seem to imply at least that these penguins in the wild have a good amount of natural light year round... when in actuality in the wild there are times when they have little light whatsoever!

I do agree - this is an exhibit which has its problems - at least, from what I can see here... but I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet.
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I think both London Sealife and The Deep provide different lights / times of lights throughout the year to try and replicate the natural light. Am sure London advertised the Penguin area closing earlier than the rest of the site on one of my visits due to this.
 
cerperal said:
It's yet more grift from protestors who are more caught up in the idea of protesting something rather than actually doing anything productive.

It's not a fantastic exhibit and was fairly mediocre when it opened (and it's only become even more obviously dated since). But the penguins are happy, it fits with guidelines set for the species and as @dillotest0 quite rightly points out, controlled lighting that is specifically designed to replicate something more similar to their natural environments is quite clearly not a bad thing. Not to mention the obvious - London is nowhere near cold enough for them, so of course they are kept inside. As I'm sure we all know and have seen in other collections, it is standard for sub-polar species like Gentoo and King.

I have my own opinions on the aquarium as a whole (in an ideal world it would close and either Sea Life or another aquarium open somewhere more appropriate in the city) and that exhibit is to me pretty damn dreadful. But it still serves the penguins fairly well, and despite what Born Free continues to insist penguins to actually require different needs to humans.

I did hear yesterday that this protest in particular, when presented with the facts around BIAZA and EAZA standards, claimed that both those institutes are corrupt and part of some grand conspiracy to allow zoos to hold animals in inhumane conditions. Certainly someone like Packham knows that to be untrue, but they evidently don't care - it's no different to standard political grifting. Anything for attention, and anything to try and mislead the public

I suspect they will be at Regent's Park soon enough claiming it's cruel to keep Aye-ayes in the dark...
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Doesn’t Chris Packham’s partner run a zoo on the IOW?
 
I don't want to come across as though I'm defending this anti-zoo nonsense because I'm not. I agree with all points made about the ignorance of these protestors who seem to think penguins and other animals have the same need for sunlight that humans do, and especially about Packham's hypocrisy in criticising certain zoos while his family run one of their own. But if I'm remembering the enclosure correctly, the pool is nowhere near long enough or deep enough to allow for any meaningful diving and porpoising which is a key part of penguin's behaviour. The land at some points is very narrow for the number of penguins held. It's an awful, awful enclosure and I truly don't believe it's good enough for penguins.

But yes, to suggest that an Antarctic species' desire to see sunlight outweighs the necessity of them living in cold climates is almost comical, and there is nothing inherently wrong with keeping penguins all indoors (just look at Brest, for example).
 
I find the land space decent at best IMO but agree that swimming space is just as important. I can’t help but have sympathy for the keeper teams in these kind of scenarios (keepers having bonds with these animals and both are at risk, not that AR give a crap b/c they always lack empathy for keepers), wish the aquarium have the funds/ability to expand the exhibit and maybe better artificial lighting, but of course that sadly won’t likely happen. I stand by still that I want troubled but good intentional zoos/aquariums to be improved rather than be forced to shut down or remove their animals for my previous reason. As for penguins being indoors (I always thought it was the norm at least in NA, I mean we have Detroit, SeaWorld, Omaha, St. Louis, and others that are able to provide a suitable environment). Also these ppl don’t understand how prone and sensitive Antarctic penguins can be to pathogens and other illnesses outside. In general a the only solution for these ppl would be the penguins move to other zoos/aquariums, but of course they hate that b/c no sanctuary (not that one exist for these kind of penguins and it would take months or years, have they not learn form the current MarineLand dilemma!). Anyways sorry for this lengthy rant.
 
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