Penguins at Edinburgh Zoo become webcam sensation

By Cara Sulieman

A PILOT trial of a webcam watching penguins at Edinburgh Zoo has been such a hit that it is to be made a permanent fixture.

It was set up in June to capture the Gentoo penguins nesting and bringing up their young and has been attracting 9000 visitors a month so far.

There was even a massive Twitter campaign to get it back up and running after technical hitches saw the camera go down briefly.

Bosses admit they never expected the scheme to be as popular as it has been and are now looking at rolling out the idea to other animal enclosures.

Record number of penguin chick birds at Edinburgh Zoo

By Oliver Farrimond

PENGUINS at Edinburgh Zoo have p-p-p-picked up some new arrivals – 30 newly-hatched chicks from a record-setting clutch of 112 eggs.

It is the first time the zoo’s famous colony of gentoo penguins have laid more than 100 eggs, a symbolic figure in the centenary year of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

There are more than 80 eggs still to be hatched, and the head keeper of penguins put the springtime clutch of hatchlings down to a rise in loved-up, first-time penguin couples.

It was the arrival of three king penguins from a 1914 expedition that gave the zoo its global reputation, as these were the first penguins ever seen outside their South Atlantic homeland.

Penguins remain one of the most popular attractions at the zoo, with the daily “penguin parade” continuing to attract large numbers of visitors to this day.