Little Penguin pools

March 2010

I could construct this enclosure in my neighbour's backyard in less than a day. Does this photo show most of the exhibit or is this an off-exhibit area? Those pools seem far too shallow for even the smallest species of penguin.

There is more to the exhibit, but not much more. And the pools are deeper than they look. This is a privately owned fauna park, not a major zoo, but I have to admit the blue pools don't really look all that crash hot. There was some construction going on nearby, it looked like a larger pool/pond maybe constructed (but it might not even be for penguins).

I would rather not see penguins at all then have them displayed in such a bloody awful enclosure, complete with kiddie pools! Such a fine Aussie species deserves much more respect, and I always think that if a privately owned park does not have enough money to build a luxurious exhibit for penguins then they shouldn't bother in the first place. I have had many similar discussions with a close friend in terms of the hundreds of concrete bear grottoes/pits that are still fairly common in zoos around the world. He always states that a zoo with grottoes is fine, but I insist that if a zoo cannot exhibit its animals well then it shouldn't bother at all. What's the point? Tiny Aussie fauna parks with limited financial resources should stick to what they do well (Cleland and Healesville are both excellent) and not bother constructing terrible penguin enclosures or having intelligent primates in metal hamster cages with nothing to do but gnaw on wood and swing from a tire. Time to bring out the bulldozers and instead concentrate on the indigenous species. I'll end my rant here.

I used to LOVE playing in those baby pools!!!......(no sarcasm intended)

do u reckon that the amount of swimming space would be more or less then featherdales

1. As usual, it appears by "luxurious" you mean "nice to look at". Your aesthetic desire to pretend you're not in a zoo appears to come first.
2. Your policy on zoos without deep pockets having no place displaying exotics a) assumes that exotics are intrinsically more worthy of getting the so-called "luxurious" exhibits than natives and b) would cause for collection management in this region, since the likes of Mogo, Cairns (x2), Alma Park, Gorge, NZA, Crocodylus, Halls Gap and Altina provide hundreds, possibly even a thousand, places for ASMP exotic mammal species.
3. Cleland and Healesville are not "tiny Aussie fauna parks". Both are state-owned and operated members of the big league. Yet again you make unfair comparisons.
4. If you don't approve of private, low-budget parks, don't visit them. At the very least, don't have the same frustrating repetitive gripe every time you see a photo that doesn't take your fancy.

@CGSwans: you make a great point in regards to both Healesville and Cleland, as I did realize that they are state-owned and not at all "tiny Aussie fauna parks". The way that I typed my response included those two in brackets, but I can now see that it was not clear to readers whether or not I was lumping those parks in with the others. I've visited both locations, and I have nothing but great things to say about each of them. I'd give the edge to Healesville overall, but Cleland really did impress me on my visit in 2007.

As far as displaying exotics is concerned, Aussie wildlife parks do a much better job of showcasing indigenous wildlife than they do exotics. There are many photos here on ZooChat with primate cages that are simply small, metal boxes. Chainlink fences for carnivores, and what appear to be kiddie pools for penguins (which are not technically exotics). What these parks generally do well is exhibit birds in well-planted aviaries, reptiles in adequate enclosures with lots of space, and many marsupials in their natural surroundings. It seems as if in many cases there are haphazard displays of big cats and primates that are there to draw in crowds, and also to sometimes aid with boosting the regional population.

My main complaint is that this particular penguin enclosure appears to be too small for its inhabitants, complete with tiny pools that in no way can be any kind of substitute for the wild. I'm under no illusion that I'm looking at a naturalistic environment, but these penguins are abundant in certain areas of Australia (just visit Phillip Island at night) and thus seeing them in such a crappy enclosure is demeaning and detrimental to the advocacy of maintaining such amazing creatures in the wild. Some people don't mind seeing big cats in chainlink boxes, or primates in wire cages, or penguins in kiddie pools, but I'd rather not see them in captivity at all than in such substandard enclosures. That seems reasonable to me, but if you are content with such conditions then you are not alone with those thoughts.