Police pick up penguins stolen from Nottingham zoo

Two missing Humboldts were found this week in Strelley Village after a tipoff

Press Association

Fri 18 Jan 2019 13.01 GMTLast modified on Fri 18 Jan 2019 16.20 GMT

Two penguins have been found by police officers two months after they were stolen.

The pair of Humboldt penguins were taken in November last year from a zoo in Nottinghamshire.

Police officers rescued them on Wednesday afternoon in Strelley Village, west Nottingham, after a tipoff, and returned them to the undisclosed zoo.

A 23-year-old-man was arrested on suspicion of burglary and theft. He has since been released under investigation.

Sgt Andrew Browning and PC Paul Toon of Nottinghamshire police worked together during the investigation.

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Organisers are forced to cancel event which offered visitors the chance to ice skate alongside live penguins after uproar from TV vet, actor and animal rights activists

Animal rights activists urged the venue to cancel the event next Saturday  

PETA had sent a detailed letter to event organisers asking them to stop it

A petition had also been launched in order to persuade organisers to pull it 

By TERRI-ANN WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 19:02, 12 January 2019 | UPDATED: 00:54, 13 January 2019

Organisers of an event which offered visitors the chance to skate alongside penguins have been forced to cancel after uproar from animal rights groups.

Londoners would have had the opportunity to share an ice rink with five Humboldt penguins at the Queens Skate Dine Bowl, in West London.  

The cute animals were set to waddle onto the rink, based near Bayswater station on Saturday January 19, however the event has now been pulled after groups such as PETA and Humane Society International called for the event to be cancelled, as well as swimmer Lewis Pugh and TV vet Marc Abrahams.

PETA said that the penguins would 'experience stress' due to the amount of humans that would have been present at the event.

The birds would have been enclosed in their own purpose built pen where a hip height barrier was to separate them from the other skaters.

Guests were told they had the chance to come face to face with the penguins between 4-8pm, with it being just adults after 7pm. All profits from the event were set to go towards BirdLife international, a bird conservation charity and the skate sessions were in aid of Penguin Awareness Day.

Lewis Pugh, who is a swimmer and ocean advocate had tweeted: 'This is terrible idea. What an inappropriate way to mark #PenguinAppreciationDay'. This is while Marc Abraham urged people to sign a petition to get the event cancelled.

The venue said: 'Penguin Awareness Day at QUEENS has been cancelled. The event was intended as a non-profit, educational & accessible experience to increase awareness and education about this beloved engaged sea-bird, with monies to be raised for BirdLife International. 'Sadly due to the concerns raised by various animal protection groups including PETA & Freedom for Animals – we have had to cancel the event in the interest of the penguins & our guests.' 

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Ed note: I should think so too. Appalling idea.

Brit zoo uses PLASTIC penguins after disease causes nationwide bird shortage

A ZOO has been forced to use fake plastic penguins in its new state-of-the-art £60,000 enclosure - due to a nationwide shortage.

By Sam Webb / Published 2nd October 2018

London Zoo: Meet the penguin rescued from a broken egg

Telford Exotic Zoo in Shropshire opened their ambitious new penguin exhibit in anticipation of welcoming a batch of Humboldt penguins.

The zoo even sent staff on a penguin keeper course so that they could be prepared for the new arrivals.

But now, after months of preparation, keepers have been told the penguins will not be arriving because of a national outbreak of avian malaria.

Zoo owner Scott Adams, 35, said that he still had no idea when the penguins would be arriving, if ever, and so has been forced to instead stock the pool with six plastic models.

Read more 

Penguins move in to Lotherton Hall

New colony of Humboldt penguins in the new Costal Zone at Lotherton Hall.

21st November 2017.

Published: 14:34 Wednesday 22 November 2017

There was cause for Happy Feet at Lotherton Wildlife World this week as its newest residents celebrated the opening of the first phase of the £1.2m redevelopment of the attraction. The colony of 17 Humboldt penguins are now nicely settled in to their new home at the Aberford estate’s Coastal Zone after moving in from their previous homes, zoos in Dudley and Newquay, a few weeks ago.

New colony of Humboldt penguins in the new Costal Zone at Lotherton Hall. Coun Lucinda Yeadon feeds the penguins. 21st November 2017.

Lotherton Hall’s huge new 120,000 litre penguin pool, complete with above and below water viewing areas, gives the creatures plenty of opportunities to show off their swimming skills to visitors. Leeds City Council’s animal curator, Peter Quince, said: “It’s been great to see the penguins settling in so well to their new home and they really are a fantastic addition to the Lotherton family.

Read more at: 

Japan’s anime-loving penguin Grape-kun passes away at Tobu Zoo

Oona McGee

The cardboard cut-out he fell in love with was moved from the enclosure to be with the penguin as he passed away.

In April this year, a Humboldt penguin called Grape-kun stole our hearts when he appeared to develop feelings for a cardboard cut-out of an anthropomorphic penguin from the Japanese hit anime Kemono Friends.

The character, called Hululu, was placed in the penguin enclosure at Tobu Zoo in Saitama Prefecture as part of a limited-time promotion for the anime, which saw other anthropomorphised animal characters from the series scattered throughout other areas of the zoo as well.

While the other animals paid no attention to the cardboard cutouts in their midst, Grape-kun became so enamoured by his 2-D visitor that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, and it wasn’t long before photos began surfacing online, showing the penguin staring up at her for hours at a time and refusing to leave her side.

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Japan hatches rare penguin chicks using artificial insemination

Wednesday May 25, 2016
05:01 PM GMT+8

A Japanese aquarium said today it had hatched two Humboldt penguin chicks after using artificial insemination, the first time the technique has been successfully deployed for the vulnerable species.

The two chicks were born early April after frozen then thawed sperm from a male penguin was used to inseminate a female penguin at the Shimonoseki Marine Science Museum in Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan.

“I was speechless when the babies were born safely thanks to the success of the artificial insemination,” Teppei Kushimoto, who is in charge of the penguins at the aquarium, told AFP.

The aquarium said it had taken four years of experiments for scientists to figure out how to collect, freeze, and correctly time the artificial insemination for the penguins.

- See more at: 

Penguins given anti-depressants after recent bad weather upsets them

Saturday 8 Feb 2014 3:07 pm

commons.wikimedia.org

It turns out it’s not just us humans who get depressed during the bad weather.

The penguins at the Sea Life Centre in Scarborough also aren’t too fond of the conditions and are being given anti-depressants to get them through.

‘After the first week out, the birds were just a bit subdued but after over a month now they are thoroughly fed-up and miserable, much like the rest of us,’ the sanctuary’s curator Lyndsey Crawford said.

Humboldt penguins are no strangers to extreme conditions as they normally live in Peru and Chile.

Read on