It's hard to believe that Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies is celebrating 10 years of entertaining visitors to Gatlinburg. I recently went on a hard-hat tour of their soon to open exhibit: Ripley's Penguin Playhouse. Relief! I was so worried that this exhibit would be a duplicate of the exhibit at the TN Aquarium in Chattanooga, which I love too. But it is not.
These are not birds of ice and snow. These African Black Footed Penguins were origionally from south of the Equator along the coast of South Africa. African penguins have evolved shorter feathers because, unlike Antarctic species, they do not face extremely cold environments. To help stay cool, they pant like a dog and swim in the chilly water.
It really will be a playhouse! Aquarium guests will be able to view the penguins from both above and below water level and unique to this exhibit, visitors will be able to crawl through clear underwater acrylic tunnels and pop up on the penguin’s private beach to view the birds nose to beak. At the same time, as visitors crawl through the tunnels, penguins swimming above and below them will be able to get a good close up of the human species!
African penguins are considered “Vulnerable,” which means they are facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. Major reasons include depletion of their food from overfishing and pollution. Since 1930, the African penguin population has dropped from an estimated one million birds down to 150,000 today.
Ripley's Penguin Playhouse is scheduled to open in March, 2010.
