If the Covid-19 pandemic taught us anything, it’s that being isolated and homebound, no matter how nice the accommodations, is no way to live.
I’ve studied gentoo penguins in Antarctica and in captivity for decades and know firsthand that penguins in the wild live extraordinarily rich lives, foraging for prey up to 20 kilometers a day across the open ocean and returning each night to a wild cacophony of life at the colony.
They have elaborate mating displays and complex social behaviors on land and at sea.
But visitors to the Sea Life London Aquarium, or any other captive environment, will never see these behaviors.
Gentoo penguins in captivity swim in desperate circles, vocalize only rarely, and display few of the complex social interactions of their wild counterparts.
Most cruelly of all, penguins in captivity show all the biomarkers of illness and old age, even as their protected environment keeps them alive in solitude and suffering for decades. And to what end?
So kids (who don’t know any better) and their parents (who should) can gawk at creatures they no doubt claim to “love”. Naturally, the aquarium industry will try and assuage visitors, who know in their hearts this isn’t humane, by arguing that captive breeding programs have some conservation benefit.
But the case for captive breeding as a justification for such prolonged animal confinement is extraordinarily weak, and especially so for a species like the gentoo penguin whose populations are not threatened.
In fact, their adaptability — which makes them easy marks for animal entertainment — has allowed gentoos to thrive in the Antarctic even as many other species have struggled under climate change.
Unfortunately, while their conditions can and should be improved, the penguins currently in captivity cannot be safely returned to the wild. They will never know what the sky looks like, what the ocean looks like, what freedom looks like.
But we absolutely can save future generations of penguins from this fate, and in doing so teach our own children what “loving penguins” really looks like.
