About half an hour before Lehigh Valley Zoo opened to visitors Wednesday morning, some of its newest residents already were waddling to work.
A handful of African penguins were busy picking up pebbles, leaves and other supplies to build a cozy place to rest inside their enclosure.
Others opted for a quick dip in the pond — their compact bodies sprinting through the clear water.
“He's pulling some leaves out and must be taking them inside to create a nest,” Zoo chief executive officer Amanda Shurr said. She pointed to a penguin dutifully carrying a beakful of grasses and leaves, its flippers stretched as if to balance the load.
“Heading into the spring, it is nesting season for them,” she said.
The zoo recently welcomed three male African penguins to the Jaindl Penguin Pavilion, bringing the total colony to 14. It's part of a species survival plan to help boost the numbers of endangered or threatened species.
Zoo officials also recently completed a $100,000 remodeling of the exhibit, creating a South African habitat within Lehigh County’s Trexler Nature Preserve.
“One of the hardest parts of the job is you want to help every single animal and save every single species,” Shurr said. “And I think, unfortunately, what we've learned is that that's not super possible to do — we all have constraints with resources and space … Penguins are one example for us; we have some others as well.
“It means that we are doing our part to hopefully breed, and then if we do have babies, in that case, they would go to other zoos and aquariums to continue that trend.”
Declining population
There are 10,400 pairs of the birds remaining in South Africa, according to the National Aviary, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit. While that might seem like a large number, it’s actually a 75% decrease over the past two decades.
Researchers have attributed the declining population to oil spills, overfishing and climate change.
The zoo’s three newest penguins: Cogsworth and LeFou, both 6 years old and Lumiere, 3, came from the Maryland Zoo in early February.
“One of the reasons we brought three new boys in was just to kind of even up our numbers a little bit,” Shurr said. “So now we have an even number of boys and girls. Hopefully, then everybody kind of pairs off and they get along. But that's not always the case.”
There can be some “teenage-style angst” as the birds partner and pick nesting spots, Shurr said. She said handlers see some “shenanigans going on in the penguin exhibit from time to time.”
“For the most part, they're kind of paired up now,” Shurr said. “That doesn't mean that all of them will nest or lay eggs, or be successful. Our hope is, of course, that we have successful eggs, and then that they will hatch and we'll have baby penguins.
“It's been a few years since we've had that here. But we have a better chance of it now, you know, for sure now that we have a better ratio.”
The last time the zoo had penguin chicks was in 2016.
Threat from bird flu
Before the trio was introduced to the rest of the colony, they were quarantined to make sure they were healthy. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, also referred to as “bird flu,” still is a concern throughout the country.
“We do keep an eye on where the cases are, because we have different biosecurity protocols depending on how close or how far away it is,” Shurr said.
“If it were to get closer to us, to the point where it was like in Lehigh County again, or Northampton County, then we'd be at the point where these guys would probably have to be inside for a little while, because we know, unfortunately, that it is a fatal disease.”
So far, more than 100 wild birds in Pennsylvania have tested positive, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. More than 3 million birds in the commonwealth’s commercial and barnyard flocks also have been affected.
Building a home
To create a more authentic habitat, zoo officials worked with an exhibit designer, Shurr said.
“We started out with a lot of pictures of what beaches would look like in South Africa, and there are a lot of rocks and things just like this,” Shurr said, pointing out features in the pavilion to make it look more natural and less industrial.
“They still will hop up on the rocks, you can see, especially the ones that are covered in poop. They're clearly hopping all over them — they're not shying away from that.”
The three penguins aren't the zoo’s only new residents — officials this month also welcomed a female North American river otter named Piper. The 8-year-old otter also came from the Maryland Zoo as part of a species survival plan, officials said.
For the moment, visitors can’t see Piper, or the zoo’s 10-year-old male otter, Luani.
“They're not on exhibit right now,” Shurr said. “Because they're meeting and greeting each other behind the scenes.”
Luani has been the zoo’s only otter since December 2021, when 14-year-old female Naya died after a surgery to remove a mass near her uterus.
The zoo currently is open 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. daily. Weather permitting, starting next month the zoo will move to its in-season hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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