‘The Penguin Post Office,’ TV review

Going really south for the winter, 'Nature' spotlights the adorable and tenacious penguins at Antarctica's Port Lockroy Post Office 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

A Gentoo family gets a group picture at Port Lockroy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        Ruth Peacey

 

The U.S. Postal Service may be scrambling these days, but there’s at least one place in the world where snail mail is thriving: Port Lockroy, Antarctica, better known as Penguin Post Office.
Every winter, thousands of tourists hop cruise ships to Port Lockroy, a British colonial-era outpost whose year-round population is a thriving colony of Gentoo penguins.
The humans, including tourists and post office workers, all pack up and bail out by March, when the Antarctic winter rolls in. The penguins stick it out and, perhaps as a result, they see no reason to fear these dilettante visitors.
That makes Port Lockroy a wonderful spot for penguin fans, and for those who can’t get there, this PBS “Nature” special films pretty much the whole season.
That includes reel after reel of “irresistibly cute,” because you’d really need a heart of stone not to find penguins charming.

Members of the penguin colony keep careful track of their pebbles at their Antarctic home. Ruth Peacey

Contrary to their appearance, however, these p enguins do not live entirely whimsical lives.
They turn out to be quite a larcenous lot, systematically trying to steal the pebbles with which their fellow penguins build nests.
On a more serious note, and one to keep in mind if you might be tempted to have very small penguin-loving children watch this special, ”Nature” films a deadly assault on a penguin who apparently offended his neighbors.
“Nature” does that because nature is like that. In the end, it shouldn’t make anyone find penguins any less adorable.

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