Seaview Wildlife Encounter Transfers 20 Humboldt Eggs to Wiltshire

Monday, 26 March 2012

PRESS RELEASE - 20 PENGUIN EGGS ARE ABOUT TO BE TRANSFERRED FROM SEAVIEW WILDLIFE ENCOUNTER, ISLE OF WIGHT TO LONGLEAT SAFARI PARK, WILTSHIRE



Seaview Wildlife Encounter has been a recognised breeder of Humboldt Penguins since 1997. In the wild, Humboldt Penguins are vulnerable with only approximately 10 000 remaining along the South American coastlines of Chile and Peru. In captivity however Humboldts are doing exceptionally well and can be seen in a number of zoos, aquaria and wildlife parks across the UK and Europe. Seaview Wildlife, through its core collection of ten breeding pairs, has been at the forefront of supplying Penguin chicks to a wide cross-section of captive collections – playing an important role in ensuring strong bloodlines and essential genetic diversity.

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This year, Seaview Wildlife Encounter is proud to have been selected to supply 20 fertile Humboldt Penguins eggs to Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire for their brand new Penguin exhibit scheduled to open in a few month’s time! Each of Seaview Wildlife’s ten breeding females has recently laid two eggs – currently being incubated by the parent birds. Just prior to hatching, the eggs will be removed and placed in incubators ready for their transfer to Wiltshire. It is an unfortunate fact that Penguin chicks have a low survival rate if left to be parent- reared – mainly due to being squashed by their over-zealous parents! For this reason, Seaview Wildlife has many years of hand-rearing experience! The breeding programme is carefully managed and chicks are only reared when the capacity of the Seaview Wildlife Penguin collection allows for extra numbers or when an external request has been vetted and approved.

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Hand-rearing Penguin chicks is a full-time job - even for the most experienced of Animal Keepers – so Longleat will no doubt be preparing themselves for the new arrivals! The hand-rearing process involves daily health-checking; sterilising the feeding equipment; liquidising the sprats with added vitamins & minerals; ensuring the environment is clean, dry and correctly heated; weighing and recording various data; and of course feeding the youngsters three to four times a day for 12 weeks! We look forward to reporting back on the future hatching and rearing success of these special little chicks!

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