A zoo in Shropshire has been forced to fill its brand new penguin exhibit with models, as a national shortage of the birds means it is unable to obtain the real thing.
Telford Exotic Zoo, in Priorslee, “spent months building a penguin enclosure and was expecting a delivery of Humboldt penguins this summer”, says the BBC.
But the zoo's owner Scott Adams said a recent avian malaria outbreak means they cannot get any.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
He told the broadcaster: “We've just timed it really badly”.
Adams added: “Unfortunately over the last couple of years there was a really bad case of penguin malaria that swept through the UK and lots of zoos, if not most zoos, have lost a lot of penguins.”
“Now, most of the big zoos are getting their penguins back so any spare penguins that would have come to us from the surplus lists or from the stud books from other zoos are now not available at the moment,” he continued.
“If we had been looking for penguins a few years ago we would probably have already had them by now,” he said.
Adams revealed the zoo may not be able to get penguins until next year and as the enclosure at Telford is so specialised for the Humboldt penguins, it can't be adapted for other animals and the models will have to remain.
Much like in its human form, avian malaria is caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes that invades red blood cells and other tissues, such as the liver, spleen, lungs and brain.
In 2016 an entire population of penguins was wiped out at Exmoor Zoo by a “quick and devastating” outbreak of the disease.
-
Peter Doig: House of Music – an ‘eccentric and entrancing’ showThe Week Recommends The artist combines his ‘twin passions’ of music and painting at the Serpentine Gallery
-
Dead Man Walking: searing contemporary opera is a ‘triumph’The Week Recommends Death row drama ‘deals with the very essence of morality, judgement and conscience’
-
Kenny Dalglish: a ‘warm and gusty’ documentaryThe Week Recommends A riveting portrait of a Liverpool FC legend
-
Zoo moves parrots that swore at guestsTall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Zoos offer cockroach naming and hippo poo candlesTall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
BBC re-runs play for listener who missed ending in 1978feature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Residents told to stay indoors after lion seen on outskirts of BerlinSpeed Read Witnesses said they saw a big cat killing a wild boar near the German capital
-
Zoo tells visitors not to show videos to gorillasfeature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Otter accused of killing relocated Loch Lomond beaversSpeed Read The dead beaver kits were moved from Tayside to RSPB Scotland reserve last month
-
‘Does it matter if our virtue-signalling is all a bit performative?’Instant Opinion Your digest of analysis from the British and international press
-
The Week Unwrapped: Shareholder power, Serbian threats and Anglican angstpodcast Do investors have more power than they realise? Is Bosnia on the verge of breaking up? And who will choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury?
