Good, It's About Time!

Penguin breeding has been paused at a London aquarium after animal welfare activists argued the birds were 'trapped in a basement without sunlight or fresh air'.

Merlin Entertainments, which owns Sea Life London Aquarium, held a meeting last month with independent experts and animal welfare groups after a campaign calling for the release of the attraction's 15 gentoo penguins.

Not onto the streets of London, one hopes?  

I took a day off and went to the London Aquarium the year before last, having first visited soon after it opened back in the late 90s. Back then, it didn't have penguins, and was just an aquarium, quite a good one at the time, as I recall. But I found the years had not been kind to it. 

Now, it was clearly targeted heavily at children and school trips, and so full of ‘educational experiences’ with a very definite bent towards eco-mentalism, and the much vaunted ‘largest reef tank in the UK’ was indeed large but very lacking in diversity of fish and corals, being mostly full of the sort of inverts and fish that people just starting out in the reef keeping hobby would be recommended to keep. 

The penguins were a jarring sight - it just seemed wrong, having seen the amazing open air enclosures at London Zoo and Edinburgh Zoo, to see them shut up in such a place.

So on this aspect, I’m inclined to agree with the activists.

Merlin Entertainments has previously said its team of animal welfare specialists and aquarists cared for the penguins in their enclosure every day to make sure they were healthy and thriving, and the enclosure was on the ground floor and not the basement.

Semantics, they still have no natural light and fresh air! 

Laura Walton, co-director at Freedom For Animals, added: 'While we agreed that full release into the wild was, regrettably, not a viable option, concerted efforts will be ongoing to see whether the establishment of a penguin sanctuary for these and other suitable birds could offer lifetime care in a more suitable and naturalistic environment, incorporating natural sunlight and fresh air.'

Maybe London or Edinburgh Zoos should step up and offer them refuge.