ZSL London Zoo Penguin Beach

Thanks for the video Stulch. I missed getting a ticket for the member's preview so it's nice to see. I did think of going down anyway and trying to blag my way in... oh well! Did anything much else happen?

The exhibit looks excellent. I'm thinking maybe hybrids are more likely where there's not available mates of the same species, and maybe if the birds are handraised? Possibly parent raised birds in good conditions would tend to choose their own species?
 
Okay guys, sorry, sorry, sorry! I got it wrong. No Fairy penguins; I must have heard the word in the intro and come to the wrong conclusion. I can't say I'm sorry as it sounds as if they are not easy to keep. Lovely videos, thanks Stulch.
 
I know they have macaronis from Living Coasts but can't remember how many it was now and am pretty certain it was all males so LC could balance out their gender ratio after having a lot of male chicks and mostly males from Twycross. But they could of course have got some from elsewhere as well and I would be interested to know if they have.

I asked about breeding all 4 as it says it on london zoo's own website that it will be a breeding facility for all 4 (Penguin Beach - Now open - News - ZSL London Zoo - ZSL) and I've I've seen it written in a lot of the news reports, but maybe they are just miss-quoting press releases. Thought I'd heard it one of the many promo videos as well but can't really remember now. Breeding all 4 species would be pretty exciting, but especially with Ricky not being there permanently, it can't be happening too soon if at all. Do think its a bit of a strange decision to move Ricky to the new enclosure, only to send him back somewhere else again given that its always at least a bit stressful to an animal being transported and settling in a new environment and group.

I brought up the breeding facilities because Im hoping to find out it doesn't mean they are going to pull most of the eggs and hand rear most chicks because it increases productivity (adults will lay again much faster than if they incubate and rear the chick themselves) and increases popularity and publicity by having lots of fairly tame youngsters around as is done surprisingly often in other places, especially american zoos. I don't know much about rockhoppers, but the other species I know will generally breed quite well naturally if their enclosure is appropriate. Of course there are times when it goes wrong and hand rearing becomes necessary but there are behaviour differences between hand reared and parent reared penguins even when they are fully adult which has implications for future breeding and social cohesion of colonies. So really I am just fishing to see if anyone has any clearer information on what the plans for breeding are because Im nosy ;)
 
Given that only a few zoos in Europe are recommended to breed Humboldt's penguins (to be fari I don't know if ZSL is one of them), I would assume that the penguin nursery (presumably to improve survival rates of hatchlings), is more for the macaronis then the other species. Given a fairly modest hatch rate, they could expect several years of parent reared only Humboldt penguins before the colony reaches capacity. If they incubate and rear the Humboldts themselves, they will have more success, but will reach capacity quicker and have to dramatically stop/slow down breeding.
 
Tunanta said:
Do think its a bit of a strange decision to move Ricky to the new enclosure, only to send him back somewhere else again given that its always at least a bit stressful to an animal being transported and settling in a new environment and group.
Click to expand...

I was wondering if it was simply a case of, as Ricky is one of the animals you can 'adopt' at London at present, they were trying to keep the people who had 'adopted' him happy?

Or maybe some people would come to the new enclosure, expecting to see him, and they didn't want to disappoint them?
 
Tunanta said:
Do you think its a bit of a strange decision to move Ricky to the new enclosure, only to send him back somewhere else again given that its always at least a bit stressful to an animal being transported and settling in a new environment and group?
Click to expand...

I don't think its a strange decision. Before all the recent press, video etc, I wasn't aware how tame this animal was. IMHO, I think ZSL have definitely won the press war over London Sea Life, judging by the volume of articles, references etc on the web, and the rockhopper has really sold the exhibit more than any other. I wonder if 'keeper experiences' require a number of tame penguins that members of the public can hand-feed, which would explain why the immature African penguins bred last year have been retained for now.

The problem is, this subspecies of rockhopper penguin is not plentiful in captivity (I believe they originated from eggs collected in South Georgia) and, while Whipsnade had some fairly steady breeding over the last decade, most of the chicks appear to have gone to London, only to have not lasted long (I suspect the fox incident). So, unless Whipsnade send their last three rockhoppers, which I believe are the parents and sibling of Ricky, to London, I don't see how London will acquire any more, as ISIS will show that breeding is rare and populations are not great in this subspecies, and indeed in rockhoppers in general.

Seeing as it is possible to collect wild penguin eggs laid out of season without any impact on wild numbers, it would make sense to start negotiating a new expedition sometime soon....

As for Macaronis, its worrying as to why so many males are being produced at Living Coasts, if this is the case. They have been so successful, it would be sad to see the colony decline due to a gender swing. This seems to have happened with the kings at Birdland and Edinburgh, as well as the rockhoppers at Edinburgh. I would be fascinated to know of any studies of gender bias in captive penguin populations.
 
Tunanta said:
I brought up the breeding facilities because Im hoping to find out it doesn't mean they are going to pull most of the eggs and hand rear most chicks because it increases productivity (adults will lay again much faster than if they incubate and rear the chick themselves) and increases popularity and publicity by having lots of fairly tame youngsters around as is done surprisingly often in other places, especially american zoos.
Click to expand...

Certainly when breeding Humbolt's the advice was not to hand-rear but let the parents get on with it. A colleague of mine was also telling me that at one of the facilities he worked at they could supplement parent reared chicks on the nest if they noticed problems - this seems to an issue when two chicks are hatched.

As to other species I would suspect that this would be done to the advice from the Stud Book keeper, etc. Penguins are quite easy to hand-rear once you get the hang of it although you could have imprinting problems but that in it's self doesn't mean these birds would not bred or rear their young.
 
johnstoni said:
I don't think its a strange decision. Before all the recent press, video etc, I wasn't aware how tame this animal was. IMHO, I think ZSL have definitely won the press war over London Sea Life, judging by the volume of articles, references etc on the web, and the rockhopper has really sold the exhibit more than any other. I wonder if 'keeper experiences' require a number of tame penguins that members of the public can hand-feed, which would explain why the immature African penguins bred last year have been retained for now.

As for Macaronis, its worrying as to why so many males are being produced at Living Coasts, if this is the case. They have been so successful, it would be sad to see the colony decline due to a gender swing. This seems to have happened with the kings at Birdland and Edinburgh, as well as the rockhoppers at Edinburgh. I would be fascinated to know of any studies of gender bias in captive penguin populations.
Click to expand...

I don't think they have particularly produced many males over females in their own breeding, but the group they acquired from Twycross was mostly male, so they were probably rebalancing from that. This year there is 1 macaroni chick and 3 more eggs being incubated so we shall have to wait to see what they turn out to be.

On the point of having tame penguins to be fed for keeper experiences, from my experience any colonies that are normally hand fed by the keepers at least some of the time is tame enough to be fed by visitors fairly easily without needing to be hand reared to achieve it, but maybe that is the reasoning behind it. I suppose we shouldn't get too carried away on possible reasons for hand rearing before we find out if that is what the zoo intends to do.

As far as the idea that Ricky was brought in to contribute to the publicity war with the aquarium, even if it has worked, it isn't something that I can feel entirely comfortable with.
 
I think the question is whether Ricky is comfortable with it! They aren't birds which live in a set territory are they? (Except for the nest). As such I doubt he's too bothered as long as he's got somewhere to stand, somewhere to swim and a supply of fish. If he's pretty tame (which he seems to be) and therefore not too bad to catch and transport, then it may well be worth transferring him to a better pool, even if only for a few days.
 
I saw him arrive and he looked pretty relaxed. He was put down gently over the fence and he stood looking for a couple of minutes and then toddled over and joined the throng. If anything he tends to be a bit bossy – while he was in the African aviary with the few blackfooteds, he certainly ruled the roost (so to speak)!
 
I went to the zoo and saw the exhibit for the first time today and I must say it was excellent. I spent quite some time there and it appeared to be very popular. I was impressed with how close you can get to the penguins which I think is important in a small urban zoo like London and on a hot and sunny afternoon there was something of a holiday atmosphere.

The one thing I did not like was the use if blue and silver sequin-like discs on the entrance sign, it totally clashes with the otherwise rough and weather-beaten look of the wooden posts if that makes sense.

Spending time at the enclosure made me wish London had sea lions, would be nice to have them between the penguins and giant anteaters as I believe has been suggested.
 
Shirokuma said:
Spending time at the enclosure made me wish London had sea lions, would be nice to have them between the penguins and giant anteaters as I believe has been suggested.
Click to expand...

Yes it certainly would be a good to have sea-lions back at London.
 
So 3.0.2 macaroni penguins are now showing up on ISIS under Whipsnade. Funny, I think 0.0.1 macaroni has been listed as being at Whipsnade for some time. Either an error, or a survivor from years past. Did Whipsnade ever have macaronis? I'm assuming the new figures refer to 4 or 5 birds from Living coasts, now at London. Interesting that only 3 are confirmed as males, maybe (unless ISIS is wrong), there is potential from breeding from the existing group at London once they settle in?

Also, it appears the breeding pair of rockhoppers at Whipsnade have produced a chick this year, making a group of five rockhoppers across the two sites.
 
johnstoni. said:
Also, it appears the breeding pair of rockhoppers at Whipsnade have produced a chick this year, making a group of five rockhoppers across the two sites.
Click to expand...

Only saw one young rockhopper at Whipsnade, don't know where the adults where but came back several time - are the nests obscured, as that would make sense?

Would it make sense to pool the rockhoppers of ZSL, and maybe any other places with them, to create a large breeding group (I've heard penguins breed better in larger groups)?
 
Last year the remaining breeding pair at Whipsnade produced a chick, I would imagine thats the bird you saw, while the pair would have likely been on a nest somewhere with a young chick or, possibly more likely, the chick may be off show being hand-reared. I believe 'Ricky' at London was the offspring of the Whipsnade breeding pair, so while they do plan to relocate him to Whipsnade in the autumn, this will create a group of 1.1 breeding pair with 3 offspring.

I would like to see the remaining pair at Drusillas combined with the Whipsnade pair in the hopes they would be stimulated to breed, but I suspect they are too old, having been hatched in Edinburgh in 1992.
 
Last edited:
johnstoni. said:
Last year the remaining breeding pair at Whipsnade produced a chick, I would imagine thats the bird you saw, while the pair would have likely been on a nest somewhere with a young chick or, possibly more likely, the chick may be off show being hand-reared. I believe 'Ricky' at London was the offspring of the Whipsnade breeding pair, so while they do plan to relocate him to Whipsnade in the autumn, this will create a group of 1.1 breeding pair with 3 offspring.

I would like to see the remaining pair at Drusillas combined with the Whipsnade pair in the hopes they would be stimulated to breed, but I suspect they are too old, having been hatched in Edinburgh in 1992.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info - personally, what I would like to see is for ZSL and Drusillas to send their rockhoppers to Edinburgh in exchange for a few gentoos (though maybe too warm for gentoos?) - or just keep a different species at Whipsnade and have Edinburgh the sole holder of Northern rockhoppers in the UK.
 
The Drusillas rockhoppers were hatched at Edinburgh, are almost 20 years old and unlikely to breed therefore.

I disagree with your suggestion that Whipsnade relocated its rockhoppers to Edinburgh - they are actually a more prolific pair than any of the Edinburgh birds currently. As for gentoos - Whipsnade tried keeping them in 2009, I think they started with 0.4, whatever happened they didn't last long. Living coasts and Bristol both sent their gentoos northwards after they didn't cope well with the climate in southern england. I believe Belfast still have a few but their numbers seem to be dwindling and I've seen very little breeding recorded on ISIS over the years (which is why I was alarmed at Woburn's proposal to include gentoo penguins in its planned open-air walk-through exhibit....unless this was planned redevelopment of the sea lion area which I guess isn't on the cards now the sea lions are staying). As much as I don't like the setup, probably the best idea for keeping gentoo penguins in England is a temperature-controlled exhibit such as the one now at London Sea life.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top