While the Polk Penguin Conservation Center was closed for repairs, the penguins who call this habitat home moved to the Detroit Zoo’s old Penguinarium. Staff with the DZS’s Center for Zoo and Aquarium Animal Welfare and Ethics (CZAAWE), which serves as a resource center for captive animal welfare knowledge, took this opportunity to study how penguins use both habitats and which environmental features help them thrive. CZAAWE staff and volunteers conducted more than 6,000 observations on individual penguins representing more than 550 hours of data to understand how habitat impacts the penguins’ well-being. During each check-in, CZAAWE staff and volunteers recorded several well-being indicators, including the penguins’ behavior, their location within the habitat and the features of the habitat they were using. The study reported the penguins continued to thrive inside the old Penguinarium, but they exhibited more positive and natural behaviors inside the new penguin center. Researchers observed that king penguins showed a more than tenfold increase in their time spent swimming in the Polk Penguin Conservation Center than in the old Penguinarium. They also spent less time in proximity to other species of penguins and engaged in less aggressive behavior. The macaronis, rockhoppers and gentoos relished their new nesting sites, spending more time engaging in nest-building behavior than they did in the old Penguinarium. The gentoos also began to utilize the elevated nesting sites inside the Polk Penguin Conservation Center, a feature they did not use in their previous habitat. The gentoo, king and chinstrap penguins all showed an overall greater diversity of behaviors in the new penguin center compared to the old Penguinarium. These trends suggest that increased space and environmental complexity benefit the well-being of the penguins who call the Detroit Zoo home. WHEN THE GUESTS ARE AWAY, THE PENGUINS WILL PLAY! When the Zoo was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, DZS staff observed the penguins taking a walk through Zoo grounds. Detroit Zoological Society | 9
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