Penguins In The Zoo: Fear And Avoidance
Penguins are charismatic animals to be sure: they are the subject of wildly popular documentaries, animated films, and countless children’s books. This popularity also means that penguins have become tourist attractions. They draw huge crowds when they are held captive in zoos and penguins are increasingly subjected to being part of “eco-tourism” attractions. This increased popularity, therefore, is not necessarily a good thing. While the impact of human visitors into penguin habitats for eco-tourism is currently being studied (and some studies suggest that penguins “can habituate to the presence of humans in the wild”), most animal advocates would agree that penguin captivity in zoos is far more damaging. This study of little penguins (that is the species name) in an Australian zoo shows that visitor presence may be very bad for penguins.
The researchers of this study looked at two distinct groups of penguins — one with no visitor contact and one with “standard zoo conditions” — and attempted to control for various factors that might influence the results. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the penguins who had regular visitors showed a marked increase in “vigilance, aggression, huddling, and distance from the visitor viewing area and decreased surface swimming.” While there was no clear impact on diving, the non-visitor penguins “spent more time surface swimming, less time alert surface swimming and consequently, more time using the pool overall.” The results of the study show that human visitors are indeed “fear-provoking” for penguins; for animal advocates, the study provides more evidence that zoos are no place for animals.