Penguin chick hand-reared
25th August 2015
It has been a great summer for penguin chicks at Paradise Park.
Keeper Logan Ody explains “In total we have had 6 penguin chicks so we are doing really well this year. A couple of the chicks from earlier this season are proving to be particularly friendly with our visitors and becoming big stars at the penguin photocall sessions each day. This little chick we have called ‘Lowen’ which means ‘Joyful’ in Cornish. The parents were not feeding him enough so we decided to take on the role ourselves, and things are going very well. Lowen is our last chick for this breeding season.
“We don’t know at this stage if this is a boy or girl. We find out by sending a tiny sample of blood to Animal Genetics, a company based in St Austell, and then wait around a week until an email arrives with the results. We feel the name ‘Lowen’ will suit either way. One of the previous chicks which started with the name ‘Aurora’ turned out to be a male and is now known as Rory!”
We hold a colony of Humboldt’s penguins. In the wild they live along the coasts of Chile and Peru where it can be very warm. They have a bare patch of skin on their faces which can blush red, helping them to cool down. Humboldt’s are considered a vulnerable species in the wild due to human interference and pollution.