WHO said penguins cannot fly?
A new family of Gentoo penguins have touched down in the UK after migrating more than 4,260 miles from Canada to their new home at the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham.
The colony will now join the current feathered residents at the centre’s Penguin Ice Adventure exhibit in the hopes they will breed.
Gentoo penguins are classified as near-threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List – with around 300,000 breeding pairs left in the wild.
Amy Langham, General Manager at The National Sea Life Centre Birmingham said: “There’s been a lot of excitement around the arrival of the new penguins and it’s great to see them in good health and getting used to their new home here.
“Our new additions are aged between one and nine years old, which is great, as it’s vitally important for penguin colonies to have birds that are a mixture of ages, particularly when it comes to breeding, as the juveniles learn everything from watching the adults.
“It goes without saying that these new waddling additions will be firm favourites with both staff and visitors alike, as our current Gentoo penguins have already demonstrated – they’re just so charismatic and endearing, you can’t take your eyes off them.”
The new Penguin Ice Adventure exhibit promises to take visitors on an expedition into the rarely seen Antarctic landscape, with multiple viewing platforms allowing guests to see the penguins waddling around their icy home and diving into the water.
Visit www.sealife.co.uk/birmingham for more information and to books tickets.
You can also keep up-to-date with Ginny the Gentoo on Twitter – at @ginnygentoo
