Snow joke: Edinburgh penguins are world stars

Nov 29 2010 By Iain Pope

penguin

THOUSANDS may be cursing the snow and ice currently gripping Scotland but In one part of Edinburgh there are some very happy customers - the city zoo's penguins.

While the rest of the capital ground to a halt the Gentoo and King penguins at the zoo have become an internet sensation with their happy antics beamed to the world via the Zoo's very own Penguin Cam.

Ironically, while the zoo itself was forced to close today because of the weather, the Penguin Cam became one of the hottest trending topics in the world on the social networking site Twitter with people passing on the link to friends.

And many of those logging on to watch the birdies were themselves snowbound workers unable to get to their offices.

One user said: "I can't stop watching the Edinburgh Zoo penguins. I've started doing voices for them and everything."

Another said: "After watching the Edinburgh Zoo penguins today, I definitely feel the need to go home and watch Happy Feet.

And another said: "Snow day. Slippers, cups of tea, malt loaf and watching the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo enjoy the snow."

A spokesperson for the zoo said: "This a lovely think to see and it has struck the heartchords of thousands."

To watch the penguins live click here (note: The cameras are not enabled for night vision!)

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Bookmarked: Edinburgh Zoo penguin cam snowed under with Twitter hits

Zoo closed but penguin snow antics still a hit online

The penguin webcam at Edinburgh Zoo became an internet hit today | pic: PR

Edinburgh Zoo is closed today due to the weather making it too dangerous for public access. But with hundreds of animals needing fed, most of the staff are still there.

When the attraction's marketing assistant Claire Richardson arrived at work this morning she noticed the penguin webcam was down. She could see the Gengtoo penguins were more active than ever, sliding around in the fresh snow, so rebooted the camera.

Richardson - who also looks after the zoo's Twitter account - sent out a tweet to let people know that, even though the zoo was shut, they could still tune in to see the penguins in action. Within just two hours, Edinburgh Zoo was trending in the UK's top Twitter searches. Richardson's link to the penguin cam was getting up to ten retweets every minute at one point.

She said:

"The penguin cam is always popular but it's gone absolutely crazy today, to the point where I can't keep up with how many times it has been linked to.
"It's lovely to hear that people are watching them with their children when they can't come along to the zoo itself.
"We're also seeing comments from people who have made it to work saying the penguin cam is so cute and distracting that their productivity is going down.
"There has been a lot of coverage of the doom and gloom snow brings, but this is the other side of that. Some people - and animals - absolutely love snow. So it's nice to cheer people up."

The zoo was due to be open for free tomorrow to mark St Andrew's Day, however officials warn that the weather is likely to mean people will have to settle for the penguin cam again.

Twitter user danpyt described it as 'actually the best thing on the internet,' while EmilyMayHowarth said she didn't even want snow but was 'jealous' of the fun the penguins were having.
Click here to see the penguins.

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