The start of a new year is the perfect opportunity to share an update on the penguin welfare project the staff of the Detroit Zoological Society’s Center for Zoo Animal Welfare began in November of 2014. This kind of long-term study is an incredible opportunity for us to examine a variety of factors that affect the well-being of the individual penguins residing at the Detroit Zoo, and to contribute to the body of knowledge on penguin behavior.

Since we began, we have looked at the effect of cataract surgery on the behavior and use of space of the affected penguins, how wearing data loggers – which in our case, track water-related behaviors – impact the penguins, and very importantly, the ways in which moving to the Polk Penguin Conservation Center has changed the lives of the penguins at the Zoo.

If you have visited the new facility – the largest in the world for penguins – then you know what an incredible experience it is. Our research demonstrates that this is also the case for the penguins, a critical goal of the new habitat. Although we are not yet done with the study, we regularly explore the data to see what trends are emerging.

One such finding is the change we’ve seen in the king penguins and their use of water. Long-term data collection allows us to compare changes in behavior and habitat use over time. When we compared water-related behaviors for the king penguins in October of 2015 in the Penguinarium and October of 2016 in the Polk Penguin Conservation Center, we saw that the king penguins increased their use of the water ten-fold! The new habitat has ten times the amount of water available to the penguins, so this is solid evidence that having additional space to perform species-typical behaviors is reflected in their behavior. The king penguins are making great use of the water, and this lets us know that the decisions we made in the design of their new habitat translate into an improvement in their welfare.

This type of research is imperative if we are to understand what matters to animals living in zoos and how to best meet their needs. We just have to let them “tell” us!

– Stephanie Allard, Ph.D., is the Director of Animal Welfare for the Detroit Zoological Society and oversees the Center for Zoo Animal Welfare.