Feeding Time

Posted by liaso (Bay Area, United States) on 13 May 2008 in Animal & Insect.

I took an afternoon and journeyed out the the International Antarctic Centre in Christchurch. I am interested in the Antarctic, but I was also driven by the desire to see the little blue penguins. While I will probably see penguins in the wild during my stay in New Zealand, little blues are supposed to be harder to see in the wild.

All of the penguins at the IAC are rescue penguins that would not survive in the wild. Some are nearly blind, one has a problem with her beak that prevents her from being able to eat without assistance, several have problems with their flippers. A lot of times these penguins are victims of being hit by a boat or somehow damaged by a fishing wire or trap.

I think it is so amazingly cool that there is a place that takes these penguins in and cares for them. Yes, I realize that they make money off the penguins, since they are a huge tourist draw. But the IAC didn't have to rescue penguins. They could have taken in completely healthy ones (and thus easier to care for) for the same monetary purposes.

I took the backstage tour and was actually able to touch one of the penguins as she waddled around the room. (She wandered up to me like that all on her own.) Elvis, the penguin in the linked picture, is a girl, but loves to "sing" and thus became Elvis. She is almost completely blind according to the signs. (Unlike most of the penguins, she was fed on land during the afternoon feeding I saw. She's not able to see the fish in the water, although she can see enough on land to waddle around her habitat safely.)

I am not sure which penguin is in the picture above because I can't see the colored tag, which allows me to identify them.