Edinburgh Zoo penguins barred from breeding amid staff shortages

Just one of Edinburgh Zoo’s world-famous gentoo penguins has been allowed to pick a partner and have chicks this year after the attraction was forced to all but abandon its annual breeding programme.

Zookeepers selected a penguin named Steffi to be the only mum after she was identified as the most important, genetically, in the zoo’s collection as she has the rarest bloodline.

The bird, which came from a small collection in Germany and is thought to be named after tennis ace Graf, pickled her own mate, a Scottish-hatched male named Terry.

The pair has now produced three chicks, with two of them fostered out to other penguins denied offspring of their own in order to allow Steffi and Terry to raise the third themselves.

Edinburgh Zoo has nearly 100 gentoos, which are famed for the Penguin Parade, their daily walkabout for visitors near the Penguins Rock enclosure.

In previous years, the attraction has bred up to 40 chicks per year, but this year fears over staff shortages during lockdown meant keepers were forced to restrict breeding of the near threatened species to a single penguin pair.

Jo Elliot, Edinburgh Zoo’s animal collection manager, who coordinates the penguin breeding programme, said: “We selected Steffi as she is the most genetically important.

“All of our gentoos are individually identified. We have pedigrees for all of them going way back and we know which ones are least represented within the captive genepool.

“She picked her own partner and went for Terry, who was born and bred in Edinburgh. He’s less important genetically but he is the male that Steffi has decided to settle down with so that’s the pair we decided to breed.”

All the penguins were allowed to go through the usual rituals of courtship, breeding and nest building. However, only Steffi and Terry incubated eggs while those in other nests were substituted for dummies.

In April, Steffi laid two eggs, which were then fostered out separately to two other adult pairs. She then produced a third egg, which hatched just last week.

Edinburgh Zoo will be allowed to reopen from lockdown on June 29. A public appeal has been launched after the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, borrowed £5m to compensate for lost income during lockdown.

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