4:00AM Thursday Jan 22, 2009
By Alanah May Eriksen
Did you hear the one about the little boy who took a penguin home from Kelly Tarlton's?
If you did, it was a bit fishy.
The Auckland aquarium fends off several calls a week from members of the public and media organisations saying they'd heard about a boy with learning difficulties putting a penguin under his shirt and taking it home.
The story goes that his mother or caregiver did not notice her son had the creature until she took him home and put him in the shower or bath because he was wet and she thought he'd had an accident.
She supposedly returns to the bathroom minutes later to find her son lathering the creature with soap.
Other versions say that the boy put the penguin in his backpack.
Kelly Tarlton's spokeswoman Tessa Lawrence said the aquarium had never had an animal stolen since it opened in 1985. It would be impossible to take an animal from its enclosure inside the Antarctic Encounter - the public enter on a snowcat which can only be stopped in an emergency.
The story, which has appeared on Trade Me message boards and other sites, has been circulating for about five years and was always different, Ms Lawrence said. She fields up to five calls a week.
Last year staff had a bit of fun with the tale and put stuffed penguins in backpacks outside the gift shop.
Ms Lawrence said the story possibly originated from Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland.
"We get school groups and people through that say 'Oh I heard this story' but it never happened."
She said people often thought the species of the alleged stolen penguin was a blue or an emperor but only the king and the gentoo types inhabit the aquarium.
Story courtesy of the New Zealand Herald @
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10552977
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