We are excited to announce the rankings of our annual Member Conservation Vote! When you become a member at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, you get to vote on which conservation projects we support. $75,000 of membership revenue is sent to support employee-championed field conservation partners around the world. Thanks to CMZoo members, five conservation efforts will receive funding.

The Migratory Bird Project, the African Lion Project, the African Penguin Project and the Spotted Owl Project will receive full funding and the Pancake Tortoise Project will receive partial funding. Thanks to CMZoo members for helping protect wildlife and wild places!

If you are interested in becoming a member so you can vote in our future Member Conservation Vote, learn more at cmzoo.org/membership.

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Apart from being adorable and full of sassy antics, the African penguins at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo have a big job: to help visitors fall in love with and advocate for wild penguins. Napoleon, Biggs, Ivy and the rest of the flock inspire us to save wildlife and wild places, and their wild counterparts can use all the help they can get.

“Luckily, they have our guests’ and members’ support through our relationship with the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB),” said Nicole Chaney, CMZoo conservation and sustainability coordinator. “Coastal birds, including African penguins, face a lot of challenges – especially right now. So, we continue to be exceedingly grateful for the amazing frontline efforts of the SANCCOB team.”

With guests’ and members’ support, CMZoo has previously sent staff to learn from and contribute to African penguin rehabilitation and release work at SANCCOB. CMZoo also provides ongoing support to fund staff for the Robben Island Ranger project, which allows on-site SANCCOB staff to monitor wild African penguin colonies, study them, and to react quickly if the birds need immediate support. As a member of the AZA African Penguin SAFE, CMZoo collaborates with a large team of penguin conservationists to pool resources and unite focuses and support African penguin conservation with the power of multiple organizations.

African penguins are endangered, with multiple ongoing factors negatively affecting their wild populations, including rising ocean temperatures and overfishing. Rising temperatures and changing ocean currents are causing adult penguins to molt during chick-rearing season. This means they’re not waterproof and are susceptible to hypothermia in cool ocean waters. Some have to turn back from fishing excursions without food for their families.

Overfishing has contributed to the decreasing abundance of fish that penguins can hunt in the wild, including small pelagic fish such as sardines and anchovies. Adult penguins raise their chicks in pairs, so while one parent stays with the chick or egg, the other parent hunts for food. With a dwindling food source, the hunting penguins must travel farther to find fish, leaving the parenting penguins without food for lengthy periods. Sometimes the parenting penguin responds as if the hunting parent won’t return, and abandons the chick or egg to find food.

SANCCOB saves abandoned African penguin eggs and chicks, incubates the eggs, and hand-rears the chicks, until they are strong enough for release back to the wild, where they will hopefully help grow the dwindling population. SANCCOB is the only organization in the world currently doing this. SANCCOB reports that hundreds of penguins were saved over the past year, thanks to rescue and rehabilitation efforts. Unfortunately, releases were delayed due to avian flu restrictions.

“In addition to all of these odds stacked against them, African penguins at SANCCOB are now affected by an outbreak of avian influenza within the rehabilitation facility, following an outbreak of the virus in wild bird populations in 2021 and 2022,” said Chaney. “SANCCOB is working hard to limit the spread of the flu while doing all they can to help birds through it. That meant setting up emergency off-site quarantine facilities and recovery teams, paying for expensive tests for the birds, and limiting volunteers and staff. So, more work, and more expenses with less hands.”

As well as providing ongoing funding for a variety of local and worldwide conservation efforts through Quarters for Conservation (Q4C) and the annual Member Conservation Vote, CMZoo has emergency reserves for immediate conservation needs. CMZoo responded to SANCCOB’s call for support in the amount of $5,000, which, along with the support of other organizations, allowed SANCCOB to quickly respond to the outbreak.

Despite extensive quarantine and biosecurity measures in place, the virus did spread among many birds, but SANCCOB reported the virus has not spread rapidly in most of their seabird patients and that many appeared to shed the virus and recover. A temporary off-site rehabilitation facility has been set up so that newly admitted seabirds can be cared for without exposing them to the birds under quarantine. They are optimistic that the penguins undergoing rehabilitation will continue to recover, and that no additional symptoms develop.

In January 2023, 51 healthy African penguins were reintroduced to the wild, despite the mountain of challenges SANCCOB endured. By visiting CMZoo, guests and members allow frontline conservation organizations, like SANCCOB, to monitor and respond to the immediate needs of the most vulnerable species on the planet. Next time you visit the flock at CMZoo, take a moment to recognize how the penguins you see before you are connected to the penguins that conservationists are working to save in the wild.

Special note: CMZoo’s veterinary, animal care and leadership teams are monitoring the local avian flu risk level closely, and have plans in place to protect the birds at CMZoo if the need arises.

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International African Penguin Awareness Day (IAPAD) is Sat., Oct. 8, and we have an exciting day of activities planned on the beaches of Water’s Edge: Africa to help raise awareness for African penguin conservation.

Although African penguin populations continue to struggle in the wild, strides have been made to save this endangered species, and you can help them simply by coming to the Zoo. One of the ways we support African penguins in the wild is by supporting our conservation partner, Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB). SANCCOB rescues, rehabilitates, rears chicks, conducts important research, and educates the public. Join us on Sat., Oct. 8, starting at 9 a.m. to celebrate and learn more about SANCCOB and African penguins.

Check out some of the fun activities we have planned!
— Attendees get a free wristband that matches the name band of a penguin in our flock.
— Post a photo from the onsite photo station and win prizes!
— 9:30 a.m. – penguin feeding and keeper talk
— 9 to 10:45 a.m. – sign up for our rubber ducky race.
— 11 a.m. – rubber ducky race, with prizes – including a penguin encounter!
— 3:15 p.m. – penguin feeding and keeper talk – including recognition of winning game participants!

This event and all activities are included in the price of your daytime admission to CMZoo. Please note: advance tickets to the Zoo are required for members and the general public, and some days may sell out. Get tickets at cmzoo.org/visit.

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It’s World Penguin Day, so let’s hang out with CMZoo’s African penguins in Water’s Edge: Africa! Join our keepers at the edge of the guest sidewalk, where our 16 African penguins can come right up to their penguin-sized fence to say hello to our guests any time they want on warm-weather days.

Did you know that by supporting CMZoo, you’re supporting frontline penguin conservation efforts in South Africa? Because of your support, our conservation partner, SANCCOB rescued, rehabilitated and released 124 chicks to the wild in 2020, and the work continues. SANCCOB penguin rangers live on-site with wild penguin populations, which allows them to quickly save abandoned chicks and help injured adults recover, then rejoin their wild flocks.

In this video, we say hello to Rico and Rufaro, and learn about their process going through a catastrophic molt. Penguins experience a catastrophic molt – when they lose all of their feathers at once, then regrow them – about once a year. You can also learn about the personalities of some of the individuals in our flock, like outgoing Napoleon and Captain, as our keepers sit down with them for breakfast.

International African Penguin Awareness Day is October 10, and the African penguin keepers at Water’s Edge: Africa have a special social media celebration in the works. On our Facebook and YouTube channels, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo will share a video about our flock of 16 African penguins, who serve as animal ambassadors for their wild counterparts.

“Our flock does an incredible job helping our guests form lasting connections with them and their species,” said Mandy Hester, keeper in Water’s Edge. “The exhibit really sets them up by removing as many physical barriers as possible.”

The flock is getting even more confident sharing space with our guests. Penguin beach, at Water’s Edge, is designed so penguins can walk right up to guests. Hester says the best way for guests to get that experience is to be in the right place at the right time, and to remember that penguins investigate things with their beaks – since they don’t have hands to feel things with.

“We’re encouraging guests to let the penguins approach them instead of approaching the penguins, and to avoid kneeling down – as tempting as that is to get face-to-face,” said Hester. “The penguins like shiny things and anything they can feel with their beaks, so keepers on the beach will sometimes give toys to guests that they can offer to the penguins. It’s been really fun watching these little guys make our guests fall in love with them.”

When guests enter penguin beach while the penguins are outside, a keeper is present to help guests learn how to best interact with them. Making sure penguins have space and have the opportunity to approach guests, we’ve seen that they most often will.

“When they waddle down on the path together, they’re so funny and curious,” said Hester. “If there’s a moth or something flying around, they’ll get really interested in that and follow it around for a while and then they lose interest and move on to something else.”

Keepers provide all kinds of enrichment to keep them stimulated, like wind chimes that shimmer. One guest that bought a bubble maker in our gift shop was playing with it on the path and the penguins loved it, so keepers bought some bubbles for them. That’s another favorite form of enrichment for the flock.

The penguins also like to investigate what treasures guests might have. They like to dig around in the underneath cargo areas of strollers if guests are comfortable with that and there’s nothing dangerous for them.

“Things that babies like, penguins like,” said Hester. “A stroller or diaper bag is a treasure trove. The guests who have interacted with them on penguin beach have formed those meaningful relationships with our penguins that we work so hard to foster. We’ve also seen them standing in line to the limited-capacity indoor penguin building with guests, which is just adorable.”

As well as bonding with guests and their keepers, they’re bonding with each other.

“We have a couple of breeding recommendations in our flock,” said Hester. “One is a pair that most recently joined the flock, but have successfully had chicks before. Ichaboe [ick’-a-boh], a 15-year-old male is one of my favorites. He’s huge. He was the largest chick on record when he was born at his previous facility. When penguins first arrive at CMZoo, they have to earn the respect of the flock. The flock members would try to push him into the pool, but he is so big and solid, he’d just stand there and they couldn’t move him. His mate is Spheniscus [sphah-nesk-us], a 14-year-old female. They’re both really confident. They are already bonded, so we have high hopes for them bringing another chick to the world.”

African penguins are endangered, so zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums work to maintain the species’ viability through a Species Survival Plan, which matches penguins to breed based on genetics. That doesn’t always mean the individuals – whether they’re recommended to breed or not – are always interested in their selected mates.

“Captain is recommended with Percy, Pearl or Roxy, but he’s bonded with Darby,” said Hester. “Biggs and Roxy were bonded and lived together before moving here, but they are not recommended for breeding. While Roxy was back in Toledo, finishing her yearly molt, Biggs came to CMZoo and bonded with Percy, but they are not recommended either. When Roxy arrived, Biggs and she bonded again, but Biggs was already bonding with Percy, so we saw Biggs spending time in both Percy and Roxy’s nest boxes. Then Biggs picked Percy, and Roxy bonded with Rico. Rico used to be bonded with Napoleon, but they lost interest in each other and now Napoleon likes Pearl, but Pearl doesn’t seem to feel the same way. Rufaro, who came with his parents, Safara and Alex, and his brother, Rudo, has bonded with Pamona, who came by herself. We track all of this, but don’t expect everyone to keep up. It’s like a reality TV show.”

There are no scheduled times that the penguins explore the areas they can share with guests, so it’s a special experience that occurs several times a day. Next time you’re at CMZoo, swing by and say hello to our penguin flock at Water’s Edge: Africa.

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Join us for breakfast on the beach of Water’s Edge: Africa. Animal keeper, Al, is feeding our flock of 11 African penguins while she tells us about their personalities – and how you can identify each penguin.

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Meet some of the keepers, see some of the animals and learn about some of the cool features of our newest exhibit for hippos and penguins – Water’s Edge: Africa!

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