Pretend penguins

Azoo has put plastic penguins in its newly built enclosure, being unable to buy any real ones. A disappointed visitor to Telford Exotic Zoo likened the display to a “Madame Tussauds” for penguins. The dearth of two-foot tall Humboldt penguins to go on show has been blamed on avian malaria. The disease has swept through London, Exmoor and Longleat. It seems that life in captivity has proved more dangerous for Humboldt penguins than in their native Peru and Chile. This is not the first time that a specially built enclosure has been bereft of its birds. The Grade I listed penguin pool at London Zoo, designed by the Modernist Berthold Lubetkin, had to be evacuated of penguins because its unrelenting concrete gave them aching joints. It seems that penguins may be best viewed as nature intended – on television.