Aquarium Staff as Penguin Enrichment

So what do you do when the penguins were looking forward to a fun encounter with guests and there is a last minute cancellation? Well, you substitute the Aquarium of the Pacific staff to give the penguins the people enrichment they were looking forward to.

One recent Saturday there was a last minute cancellation for the Aquarium of the Pacific’s popular penguin encounter program. In this program guests get to interact with the Magellanic penguins. This interaction is fun for the guests and fun for the penguins.

Rather than disappoint the penguins Senior Aviculturist Sara asked the staff that morning if they could stand in for the missing guests.

Of course, you didn’t have to ask me twice so I spent part of my Saturday volunteer shift as enrichment for the penguins. Needless to say it was a lot of fun. Especially since Admiral Fancy Pants the penguin (Yes that is his name) and a couple of the younger birds decided that they liked hanging around me as their personal enrichment toy. Check out the video and you’ll see why. At the end of the video Admiral Fancy Pants decides to check out the camera that was videoing the encounter, accidentally knocking down the tripod. It actually looks like he’s saying “No Paparazzi please”.