Penguins are coming to the SC Aquarium

A new attraction planned for the South Carolina Aquarium next spring won’t feel at home in the Piedmont exhibit or the Mountain Forest area or even the Salt Marsh display.

But misfits or not, penguins attract crowds and make money.

The aquatic, flightless birds are expected to occupy a habitat in the “Great Hall” near the main entrance, according to aquarium public relations manager Beth Nathan. That will make them a visitor’s first sight at the locally focused attraction.

“Penguins are a proven draw in other markets,” Nathan said. “We’re hoping to enjoy increased visitors and membership.”

The aquarium can use a boost. Attendance dropped by more than 10,400 between 2006 and 2007, with school visitors alone down by 5,000. The aquarium posted a $226,000 loss in 2007 compared with a $289,151 gain the previous year.

Details are still in the works, but Nathan said the penguins will be a warm-weather species. Their purpose: to convey educational messages about global warming and conservation.

The aquarium is consulting with some of its counterparts from around the country before finalizing plans in advance of the March opening date.

The penguins will be on an extended visit but not a permanent stay on Concord Street, Nathan said. To accommodate them, the aquarium will move its touch tank from the Great Hall and reopen it with upgrades on the second floor this November.

Though penguins typically conjure images of tuxedoed birds sliding across chunks of ice in arctic waters, most live in more temperate climates, according to Tom Dyer, an aviculturist with the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans.

The Audubon Aquarium features 17 African black-footed penguins and three Rockhopper penguins, both warm-weather species. Dyer said that apart from building an environment, maintaining the birds doesn’t cost as much one might guess.

The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas keeps the water at 60 degrees and the air at 68 degrees for the penguins. “We can wear shorts in there,” Dyer said.

And all 20 penguins share a 4,000-gallon tank.

“In the wild they live in huge colonies where everyone gets a little bit of space,” Dyer said.

A penguin eats about a pound of food per day, less than some of the fish on exhibit. Dyer said both the African black-footed penguins and Rockhoppers feed on capelin, a fish similar to a sardine or anchovy.

Dyer said a warm-weather penguin can live about 15 years in the wild but longer in captivity. One of the birds he tends, Ernie, will turn 27 years old soon.

They live in an enclosed environment at the aquarium which, Dyer says, protects them from West Nile virus and malaria, two mosquito-spread diseases to which they are susceptible.

The Audubon Aquarium has housed warm-weather penguins since it opened in 1990, Dyer said. The birds not only became a popular attraction but part of the fabric of New Orleans, he added.

Local newspaper columnists know them by name, he said, and the city anxiously awaited their return after a nine-month evacuation to California during Hurricane Katrina and the cleanup that followed.

“I don’t think anyone doesn’t like penguins,” Dyer said. “And if they don’t, you’ll read about them some day.”

Reach Allyson Bird at 937-5594 or abird@postandcourier.com.

Article From: http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/aug/21/feathered_friends_from_off51534/