SEA LIFE London Aquarium SEA LIFE London Aquarium’s new penguin experience

The new penguin exhibit is due to open on 18th May. The penguins have been held at the Weymouth Sealife Centre for the last few months - they originate from Edinburgh I believe.

SEA LIFE London Aquarium's new penguin experience

“This is really very different to a traditional zoo setting and our intention is to essentially recreate a taste of the Antarctic in the heart of the city,” says Toby Forer, General Manager at SEA LIFE London Aquarium. ​

I will withhold total judgement until I see the exhibit but clearly Toby hasn't been to many zoos if he thinks the London set-up is somehow different to places such as Seaworld, etc. Although it will be in the sense that it will be built on a tiny budget compared to places like Seaworld

I love the slightly snide remark "traditional zoo" since the animals on display were bred in a traditional zoo.

I wonder also if that's a dig at London Zoo who open their penguin exhibit on May 27? I doubt if ZSL are worried since looking at the progress on site yesterday (12 May) it seems like London's exhibit is going to be very impressive.

 

I did notice on the map leaflet at Whipsnade the other day that London are advertising their new exhibit as 'the largest penguin colony in London', which gave me a few minutes head-scratching until I remembered about the SeaLife exhibit.

 

Well I am reserving judging on London Sealife as it might be impressive.

Although the idea of have penguins at London Aquarium isn't new as the previous owners where discussing this possibly in 1997 when I did some brief consultancy work there. The basement areas under the old GLC - City Hall building are very large albeit with out natural daylight.

 

How I love when Sea Life Centres, Disney's Animal Kingdom and others alike have a dig at what they call 'traditional zoos' and claim they are 'different'

There is the saying 'old wine in new bottles' but the thing is that in almost every case, there isn't even a new bottle, not even a new label on the bloody bottle...

 

Without any natural daylight? how very unnatural

 

Well most aquariums displays have artificial light to be honest.

 

Yes, you are of coarse correct John, however I would put money on it being nowhere near as good as the new exhibit at Regent's Park judging by the photo which you have kindly shared with us, very much looking forward to seeing it in the near future.

 

Well, I'm making my first visit here in a few weeks so I shall see what I think of it then, I can't imagine them having that much room there, as it seems a quite packed in attraction. Are the penguins replacing an old exhibit?

 

Not sure James it been a while since I have been there. There is a lot of room in the old GLC building but whether the owners of the building would allow Sealife to expand from their original footprint is another matter. Will certainly pay it a visit when they open the penguin exhibit.

I agree Tarzan I think London Zoo penguin exhibit will better than Sealife's.

 

So basically we are going to have a large South American themed exhibit, and a climate controlled Antarctic exhibit. Room for both maybe?

 

Yes. It smacks of arrogance and almost as if Sealife want to piss other animal collection off which is a bit silly.

 

The problem is that SeaLife have a history of being rather Holier Than Thou, which makes it hard to tell if a dig is intended or not.

The most famous (notorious?) example would be the declaration that they did not believe cetaceans or Sand Tiger Sharks should be kept in captivity, which was on all their leaflets for years. Which would be fine, if a little smug, if it didn't disappear suddenly when they acquired the London Aquarium, complete with Sand Tigers...

And also the use of 'Sanctuary' as exhibit names, which started off being used for genuine rescues (Seal Sanctuary, Turtle Sanctuary) but in recent years has come to mean 'exhibit for an animal that isn't a fish or invertebrate, even if it's actually come from a far nicer exhibit at another zoo' (cf. penguins at Weymouth).

It may or may not be intentional, but it rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.

 

No it isn't. SeaLife is a global brand. Does the UK have climate controlled penguin exhibits? I am not sure. However, when Morecambe Marineland open in 1963 they did have an indoor penguin exhibit and claimed it was a climate controlled environment and certainly European zoos still do and a good example being Lorra Park.

Yes it is PR spin but as Maguari points out SeaLife basically are smug hypocrites saying one thing and doing another. The issue of the sand-tigers is a case in point. Ironically keeping sand-tigers is far more contentious than say bottlenose dolphins from a welfare point of view at least most dolphins in Europe and the US are captive bred unlike most if not all large sharks in aquaria.

I would love to able to do an audit on how many animals they replace from the wild on an annual basis; quite a few my contacts who have worked for them tell me. At one time they were quite open and co-operative with other aquaria but I have been told that this isn't quite the case now. They make claims about breeding and conservation which are basically laughable when you compare them to ZSL and other establishments.

As I said before, my comments are not directed at the keeping staff at Sealife who are as dedicated as many other zoo and aquarium staff just the corporate management ethos of the organisation. But when you have animal attractions run by accountants such as those operated by Merlin one can sadly expect nothing more.

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Note to Self: Yes John you have now officially become the Victor Meldrew of the zoo world

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It's called 'blowing with the wind' or 'renaging on your original position statement' and I've seen many examples in animal collections over the years.

I agree the desire to phrase exhibits more attractively using words like 'sanctuary' seems to have hotted up recently, also the oft quoted statements such as 'we are not like other zoos', or 'we are not a zoo' -which of course they are really.

 

John - I agree on the point of Merlin, they are a very money orientated company and will advertise 'anything' to get a few more pennies in the bank. Gosh, imagine if they ran London Zoo, that would be awful. Its such a shame they took over SEALIFE, it was much better previous to their take over. I'm not sure... was it a individual company before? I don't know a lot about their history.

Anyhow, in one way the takeover did benefit the company, with new chains opening in Alton Towers and Chessington, which gave the general public more awareness of the chain. I also agree on the sanctuary point too, way too overused, but in a way it appeals to the public and makes them look better (in the general public's eyes).

 

Sea Life and the Seal Sanctuaries, along with New Forest Nature Quest, were originally owned by another attractions company called Vardon Plc I believe, which sold most of their attractions to Merlin at the end of the nineties. So I think there's always been the profit-based catalyst at the back.

 

London Regional News | London Tonight - ITV Local

Video in the link above shows the completed enclosure at Sealife London and the Penguins transfer from Weymouth which took place on Monday 9th May

 

First News Children's Newspaper - Official Site > News > Gentoo Penguins settle in to SEA LIFE London Aquarium

 

I'm going next Saturday, quite looking forward to seeing the new exhibit, and have never been to the aquarium either. Will hopefully take some photos to share with you guys.