At a Penguin ‘Retirement Home,’ a Slower Pace and Plenty of Fish At a Penguin ‘Retirement Home,’ a Slower Pace and Plenty of Fish
The New York Times
Six African Penguins at the New England Aquarium in Boston have made a new home on an island designed to address the aches and pains of aging.
Good etiquette is expected at meal time in the penguin colony, but the diners with the best manners are found on a new, special island for birds of a certain age.
There, geriatric African penguins don’t have to worry about younger birds bombarding the buckets of fish delivered by trainers at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
“They all get a good opportunity to eat and take their time and not feel rushed, not get pushed off the island by another animal that’s anxious to eat,” said Kristen McMahon, the aquarium’s curator of pinnipeds and penguins.
Six seabirds have moved to the island for “retired” penguins since it opened in February. Their relocation is meant to address the large number of penguins at the aquarium who are living well beyond the age they would be expected to reach in the wild. About half of the aquarium’s 40 African penguins are older than the bird’s life expectancy of 10 to 15 years, Ms. McMahon said, and some have doubled it.
