Picking on Penguins

 

Picking on Penguins: When Animal Rights Meets Animal Welfare 

Introduction

In May 2011, Sea Life London Aquarium unveiled something entirely new for the capital: penguins. Ten Gentoo Penguins (Pygoscelis papua), transferred from Edinburgh Zoo, became the founding residents of a purpose-built enclosure known as Penguin Point. For the first time, visitors to London could watch these Antarctic birds dive, swim, and shuffle across an icy landscape recreated in the heart of the city.

More than fourteen years have passed since that opening, and the colony has grown and changed over time. Today, reports suggest that around fifteen Gentoo Penguins call the exhibit home, though the number has fluctuated as chicks have hatched and some birds have been relocated to other aquariums abroad. In 2021, the London site celebrated its first confirmed breeding success, with two chicks emerging from carefully managed nests - a milestone for the programme.

The enclosure itself is designed to mimic the penguins’ natural environment, with chilled air, cold water, and seasonal light cycles intended to encourage nesting and breeding. Sea Life presents the colony as part of its wider conservation and education efforts, highlighting the species’ adaptability and the challenges they face in the wild.

This long-running exhibit has become a fixture of the aquarium’s identity, offering Londoners a glimpse of Antarctic life without leaving the city. Yet, as with many captive animal displays, it has also attracted scrutiny and debate over welfare, environment, and ethics - issues that continue to shape how the penguins are perceived.

The Cove: Understanding Japan’s Dolphin Drive Fishery and the Myths Surrounding It

Photograph of mother and baby dolphin courtesy of Dolphin Quest

The Cove: Understanding Japan’s Dolphin Drive Fishery and the Myths Surrounding It

The Cove is a 2009 award-winning documentary that exposes the annual drive fishery hunt of dolphins and whales in the whaling village of Taiji, Wakayama, Japan.

Drive fisheries are not historically new. Several countries aside from Japan have used, or still use, this method to hunt animals, including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands and Peru. The drive fishery at Taiji is believed to have existed for more than 350 years. However, The Cove was not the first to document this controversial hunt—publications such as National Geographic and television series by the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the mid-1970s also highlighted it. Many people have rightly raised concerns about these hunting methods, questioning them on moral, ethical and animal-welfare grounds.