After a wait of around seven months in the quarantine, the Humboldt penguins have been finally shifted to their permanent home the state of art exhibit from where tourists will be able to view them on Monday morning.
However Mumbaikars will have to wait for a week or so more before flocking to watch them as Zoo officials first want these seven penguins to adjust to their new surroundings.
The penguins were released in their 1,800 square feet exhibit at around 7:00 am on Monday morning, a senior official from the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale (VJB) Zoo told DNA.
“The penguins were moved from quarantine to the exhibit safely in specialised cage boxes and were released in the exhibit under supervision of experts. They seemed extremely delighted and jumped in their pool and begin swimming,” said the official adding that as per protocol they should ideally be kept in this exhibit for around 10 odd days till they acclimatize to their permanent home.
Infact, officials from VJB Zoo said that the penguins were only shifted to the exhibit after a detailed assessment of the enclosure was carried out. “Several tests including microbial tests of water, air quality tests and others were conducted and when all the reports came in satisfactorily the decision to move them was taken,” he said.
The 1800 square feet exhibit designed by HKS International has 500 square feet of pool area that will have around 40,000 litre of water for the penguins to swim.
“This water will be filtered and re-used and we have used technology that can treat the entire 40,000 litre water in just an hour. Also the temperature inside the exhibit will be maintained between 14 to 16 degree Celsius while the humidity levels would be kept to around 65 to 70%,” shared another VJB Zoo official.
The seven penguins at the Zoo currently are called Bubble, Mr Molt, Donald, Daisy, Popeye, Olive and Flipper.
A total of eight humboldt penguins three males and five females were brought from Seoul to the Byculla zoo on July 26, 2016. However one of them who was named Dory died on October 23, due to bacterial infection causing quite an uproar leading to several protest by activists as well as political parties.
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