Little penguins may want zoo visitors to keep their distance

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-03-20 03:00

New Zealand

Rowena Shaw/Unsplash

A trans-Tasman research team has found little blue penguins/kororā living in zoos may not enjoy close contact with us humans. Researchers studied kororā in Wellington Zoo, finding they avoided a visitor viewing pier when the exhibit was open to visitors. This suggests close visitor contact may provoke fear in penguins, and be less satisfying for visitors. Future design of penguin spaces should minimise the animals' potential stress and fear, say the authors, by ensuring the enclosure and visitor viewing areas either keep visitors at a distance or at least obscure the penguins’ view of visitors.

Media release

From:

Journal/
conference: New Zealand Journal of Zoology

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Melbourne, Department of Jobs Precincts and Regions (Australia), La Trobe University (Australia), Wellington Zoo (NZ), Zoos Victoria (Australia), Hartpury University (UK)

Funder: This research was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant [grant number LP140100373] and was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Funding support for camera equipment and accommodation for the principal investigator during the study was also provided by Wellington Zoo.

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