March of the penguins breathes new life into zoo

Endangered African Penguin's swim inside their new home at the Toronto Zoo. A new exhibit on the penguins opens 

May 21, 2011

Brett Popplewell/Toronto Star

The elephants may be leaving, but the penguins have just arrived.
Officials at the Toronto Zoo have brought in 12 endangered African Penguins in an effort to reverse last year’s decline in zoo attendance.
The penguins — which were last displayed at the zoo in 1993 — have taken up residence in a 6,000 square foot exhibit that includes a massive pool complete with underwater windows that let visitors observe the swimming birds as they flip, flop, feed and glide in the water.
The exhibit is a piece of good news for the zoo, which is still dealing with the negative publicity surrounding its recent decision to get rid of their long-standing elephant exhibit.
Last week, the zoo board voted to ship the elephants to a warmer, larger but still unspecified facility for the elephants’ own good.
But enough with the elephants, this is a story about penguins.
The penguins, which will be on display all year round, will spend their summer days living in and around their outdoor pool. By night and winter they will be lodged inside a cement house that is meant to mimic a watery cave.
The 12 penguins — who go by such names as Shaker, Flap and Pedro — were all bred in captivity.
Native to South Africa, the African Penguin population has dropped from millions to less than 12,000 since the 1800s, primarily due to overfishing of their natural food supply.
The new exhibit is the zoo’s largest new attraction for 2011 and zoo staff hope the exhibit will help to boost attendance levels until next year when the zoo is expected to unveil a giant panda exhibit.
Brandon Wyatt, one of five zookeepers in charge of the exhibit, says the penguins are traditionally very popular among children who are able to interact with the flightless birds through the glass windows in the aquarium.
Pressing one’s nose or fingers up to the glass tends to attract the penguins, whom Wyatt describes as “very curious little birds.”
Zoo attendance over the last decade hovered around 1.3 million visitors per year. Last year, attendance dropped by 12 per cent from the year before. Zoo staff blamed the recession for that drop.

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