Who would have thought that a couple of years before, the creature in the photo was in a far too small cage, with many others on the stern of a fishing boat, awaiting his hungry fate as crew food. I`m talking about the (young King)penguin of course not me :o))
He was named Pringle after the royal Marine commander (Sir Stewart Pringle) that was injured (or maybe even killed) in "The Wars". He was about three years old, and came to us as part of a captive breeding programme (although he fitted in on his own I have no idea). He was a rewl character and he continually refused to go into the pond in his enclosure. He was the only single King that we had, and we tried desperately to aquire him a mate. He was housed in an enclosure with a thousand or so square feet of pond and a dozen or so other penguins, Gentu, Rockhopper, etc.
A much travelled and social specis, during his lifetime he appeared on many TV programmes, and in many news paper articles and the most memorable was the Diana Doors tv programme appearance where once again he refused to enter her swimming pool, and was unceremoniusly launched by his keeper much to his annoyance (Pringles where upon in spectacular fasion he dived deep and shot out of the pool landing upright and walking at the feet of one of the show particpants. He had an unusual trait for a Penguin in that no matter where he was on a set if the light appeared on a camera (denoting it was filming) he would either turn to the camera, or if it was a distance away, he would wonder over to it and stand in front looking up and "posing" and some times, emitting his rather loud call.
2 comments:
You might have used a larger photo?
I would have done, if I could have found a way to save it at the size I could actually enlarge it to :o))
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