Sean Manning, 5, interacts with Nipper, a gentoo penguin, during the “Penguin Bon Voyage Party” at the Tennessee Aquarium on Monday.
Senior aviculturist Amy Graves interacts with Shivers, a Gentoo penguin, at the Tennessee Aquarium on Monday.The Tennessee Aquarium gave Chattanoogans the opportunity Monday to say “bon voyage” to 11 penguins before they’re sent out West to help maintain genetic diversity for the animal populations.
The 11 penguin chicks that were born at the aquarium since 2009 will be transferred to SeaWorld San Diego sometime in the next few months as a part of the loan agreement that brought 19 Macaroni and Gentoo penguins to Chattanooga in 2007, said Loribeth Aldrich, an aviculturist with the aquarium.
The agreement called for the aquarium and SeaWorld to split ownership of any new chicks, with the odd-numbered births belonging to the aquarium and the even-numbered ones going to SeaWorld, Aldrich said.
Although it isn’t often that SeaWorld changes the terms of a loan agreement, sometimes breeding loans are reconsidered and changed to allow “both institutions to manage their populations responsibly,” said Stephanie Costelow, the curator of birds for SeaWorld San Diego.
In order to better ensure genetic safety and diversity for the small population of aquarium penguins because of an uneven split of males and females, Aldrich said the aquarium opted to trade ownership of their six chicks for six adults known to be good breeders and likely to produce more chicks for the Chattanooga population.