ZSL London Zoo Penguin Beach

There was a staff preview of Penguin Beach yesterday, in lovely sun which showed it off beautifully and gave it a rather seaside atmosphere! The glass wall in front of the tiered viewing seats is fantastic! – the penguins swim right up to it so you can see every feather and bubble from their exhalations and they look straight at you from just inches away. I haven't seen penguins "swim" underwater before and it's a wonderful sight. The pool is deep enough and long enough for them to get up a really good speed and jump out like flying fish.

There are about 70 penguins in there at the moment, I was told; humboldts, macaroni, fairy penguins, black-footed and rockhopper. I suspect the black-footed are the five or six left-over ones who have been living in the African aviary in the meantime; and the rockhopper definitely looks like Ricky to me!
 
I love how they are referring to this as "Englands biggest penguin pool"

Edinburgh Zoo can then refer to having "Scotlands biggest penguin pool" and "UK's biggest penguin pool"
 
volvox said:
There was a staff preview of Penguin Beach yesterday, in lovely sun which showed it off beautifully and gave it a rather seaside atmosphere! The glass wall in front of the tiered viewing seats is fantastic! – the penguins swim right up to it so you can see every feather and bubble from their exhalations and they look straight at you from just inches away. I haven't seen penguins "swim" underwater before and it's a wonderful sight. The pool is deep enough and long enough for them to get up a really good speed and jump out like flying fish.

There are about 70 penguins in there at the moment, I was told; humboldts, macaroni, fairy penguins, black-footed and rockhopper. I suspect the black-footed are the five or six left-over ones who have been living in the African aviary in the meantime; and the rockhopper definitely looks like Ricky to me!
Click to expand...


BBC News video clip:

BBC News - London Zoo opens new penguin pool
 
volvox said:
There are about 70 penguins in there at the moment, I was told; humboldts, macaroni, fairy penguins, black-footed and rockhopper. I suspect the black-footed are the five or six left-over ones who have been living in the African aviary in the meantime; and the rockhopper definitely looks like Ricky to me!
Click to expand...

Really? Can anyone confirm this? If it's true London have kept it under their hat well.
 
I was surprised, firstly that they'd keep hold of their lone rockhopper, as well as the few African penguins still at the site. Given the video on the ZSL site, perhaps the London Sea Life campaign has meant they need to pull out all the stops to launch the exhibit. Certainly they are making much of the fact it is outdoors, with women in bikinis sitting inside the enclosure (on the video, not a permanent fixture). Maybe they felt having four (possibly five?) species in the exhibit might be a draw. I suspect the rockhopper was hand-raised, and does better photographs than a perhaps slightly more wary group of newly-arrived macaronis, (which I couldn't see in any of the videos).

I would be very surprised if blue penguins are there, but we'll see....
 
Okay, well the list of five including the fairy penguins was what the keeper who did the talk on the preview day actually said. I don't know who else could "confirm" it. I could see small not-very-marked blue-ish penguins swimming about and thought they must be youngsters until the keeper said fairy and I realised what I was seeing. There were loads of macaroni penguins in the pool, easily identified, swimming together with Humboldts. I can't be sure I saw any Africans as they're more difficult to tell from Humboldts, but they were certainly mentioned. And then I saw what looked like a lone rockhopper being hand-delivered, so to speak, and thought aha! that's Ricky.
 
They are keeping Humboldts and Africans together ? Seriously - Ever heard of hybrids ?
I wonder what the EEP thinks about that ?
 
This is what it says on the ZSL website: "Penguin Beach will be a breeding facility for colonies of Humboldt, macaroni, black-footed and rockhopper penguins and will include a special penguin nursery."
 
I would like to think that they are able to tell their animals apart and to remove eggs from potential hybrid pairs, but knowing penguins, this is not at all an entirely safe method. Mixing closely related species should be avoided - and is done so in pretty much all reputable zoos. To put them together anyway is at least highly questionable in my opinion...
 
Right, try again, I'm attempting to post a p-p-p-pic of the penguins...
 

Attachments

  • penguin beach opens.JPG
    penguin beach opens.JPG
    3.3 MB · Views: 33
Saro said:
They are keeping Humboldts and Africans together ? Seriously - Ever heard of hybrids ?
I wonder what the EEP thinks about that ?
Click to expand...

Interesting point. I only have experience of single species groups but it seems reasonable to think this could well happen. I am hoping to get to both ZSL and London Aquarium next week to have a look at both exhibits.

I found this paper of wild hybrid penguins although not Blackfoot/Humbolt's.

http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=MU9900198.pdf
 
John Dineley said:
Interesting point. I only have experience of single species groups but it seems reasonable to think this could well happen. I am hoping to get to both ZSL and London Aquarium next week to have a look at both exhibits.

I found this paper of wild hybrid penguins although not Blackfoot/Humbolt's.

http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=MU9900198.pdf
Click to expand...

Thank you for the paper ! I was not sure about rockhopper/macaroni hybrids. This just makes it worse. As far as I know, all spheniscus species (like Humboldt and African) can interbreed.
 
I'm sure the keeping staff could identify a mixed humboldt/jackass pairing, however it would be a tricky issue if pair bonds were being formed between individuals of these two species. I don't think their nesting habits are dissimilar enough to encourage them to nest separately, although I could be wrong having never worked with jackass penguins. Would there be a similar situation with rockhoppers/macaronis? I know Edinburgh kept their rockhoppers separately until they stopped keeping macaroni penguins.

As for little blues, if this was indeed announced at the preview, I would bet they are not including any mention of this species in any press in case they don't do well in the exhibit, given the issues that Bristol had. I certainly saw no blue penguins in any of the footage of the exhibit so far, however I did notice a fair few immature humboldts, which can resemble blues to an extent.
 
I recall a hybrid penguin at Copenhagen zoo, i will have to look back on my old IZN's
 
Penguin Beach Members' Preview

volvox said:
Okay, well the list of five including the fairy penguins was what the keeper who did the talk on the preview day actually said. I don't know who else could "confirm" it. I could see small not-very-marked blue-ish penguins swimming about and thought they must be youngsters until the keeper said fairy and I realised what I was seeing. There were loads of macaroni penguins in the pool, easily identified, swimming together with Humboldts. I can't be sure I saw any Africans as they're more difficult to tell from Humboldts, but they were certainly mentioned. And then I saw what looked like a lone rockhopper being hand-delivered, so to speak, and thought aha! that's Ricky.
Click to expand...

I've downloaded on to You Tube the video I took of the Members' Preview keeper talk/feed on Thursday afternoon.

YouTube - ‪Members' Penguin Beach Preview at ZSL London Zoo‬‏
 
Last edited:
On both videos, the keeper only mentions Fairy Penguins in relation to 'Penguins of the World'. They then list the Four species which are kept (not including Fairy), so ZSL presumably don't have them.(I am pleased to say, given their poor survival rate in European zoos.)

Nice looking exhibit by the way.
 
Last edited:
I have been following the development of this exhibit with interest over the last few months and I must say in general it looks very good indeed and the numbers they are aiming on keeping eventually will be something to see. There are a few things that are confusing me though and as it will be quite a while before I can afford to make it down there myself if anyone else knows the answers then I'd appreciate knowing more. Firstly, alongside the hybridisation risks, if the exhibit is a South American beach why are African/black-footed penguins being included? Secondly, why do they need a proper penguin nursery with incubation room and a separate pool for juveniles when in my experience penguins are generally very good at rearing there own young? And thirdly, there is a lot of talk of breeding all 4 species at london, but with only 1 rockhopper and as far as I know only male macaroni penguins presumably these are long term plans-so if anyone can find out more about those plans it would be interesting.
 
All-male Macaronis? Do you know how many, and where they came from?

I'm not sure what talk there has been of breeding all four species? The last linked video states that 'Ricky' is due to leave London in September to return to Whipsnade.

While some individuals can be excellent parents, this certainly isn't the norm in captivity, although success in producing parent-raised chicks has increased. I would imagine the space in the nesting areas, and the hopes the burrowing species will create their own, will contribute to more parent-raised chicks, but also a higher chick mortality rate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top