They waddled in two by two, or maybe it was four by four – a colony
of 32 penguins has successfully made its way from Jurong Bird Park’s
Penguin Coast to the new Bird Paradise at Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Reserve.
The penguins have been introduced to their new home, Ocean Network
Express Penguin Cove, a 3,000 sqm habitat that is three times the size
of the exhibit at Jurong Bird Park and features two saltwater acrylic
tanks with a water depth of seven metres.
The new habitat even comes with its own Southern Lights, or Aurora Australis, which will be projected in the dome.
Penguins take their first steps into their new home in Ocean Network Express Penguin Cove. Photo Credit: Mandai Wildlife Group
The lighting in the habitat is also designed to mimic the day and
night cycles of the Sub-Antarctic Falkland Islands as this allows for
the penguins’ natural biological cycles to follow the seasons in the
southern hemisphere.
Special frozen fish feeding devices, concealed within the underwater
rockwork, encourage the penguins to dive and express their natural
hunting behaviours.
With a much larger habitat, there are plans to expand the penguin
colony through ex-situ conservation programmes aimed at maintaining
healthy and genetically diverse populations of animals under human care.
Participation in these global population management programmes allows
Bird Paradise to receive penguins from other member zoos. In February,
eight Gentoo Penguins arrived from a zoo in Europe, making them the
latest additions to the penguin family.
Bird Paradise soft opens on 8 May.