After weeks of rain and wind in England, miserable penguins at a
marine centre are being fed anti-depressants to cheer them
up.
The 12 Humboldt penguins at the Sealife Centre in Scarborough,
northeast England, were showing signs of stress as they shivered
through one of the wettest winters on record.
Although the penguins are accustomed to cold weather in their
natural habitat of Peru and Chile, the constant rain has come as a
shock to them.
Keepers noticed they were tending to huddle together for warmth
rather than plunging into the water.
So it was decided to slip pills into the fish they are fed on a
daily basis.
"They are just not used to this type of constant, prolonged bad
weather that we are having," a spokeswoman for the centre told
AFP.
"They are under treatment for stress and we hope the tablets will
have a calming effect on them."
Lyndsey Crawford, the centre's display curator, explained that the
pills were designed to stimulate normal behaviour in the
penguins.
"Hopefully their instincts will kick in and they will realise they
are not in any danger," she said.
The penguins have no idea that they are taking pills and suffer no
discomfort as a result.
"They literally don't know anything about it. It's a tiny tablet
that fits into the gill of the fish. It doesn't taste awful," she
said.
The penguins were also seized by anxiety three years ago when a
trespasser broke into their enclosure. The experience left the
animals so frightened that they failed to produce eggs for some
time.
Humboldt penguins are threatened with extinction in Peru and Chile
due to a range of factors including climate change, the
over-fishing of the species that they feed on and problems with
becoming entangled in fishing nets.
Prime Minister David Cameron visited flood-hit areas of Somerset on
Friday following criticism of his government's handling of a crisis
that has left swathes of the country under water.
Royal Marines helped to evacuate the residents of 140 homes in the
Somerset village of Moorland after floodwaters rose rapidly
overnight.
The rainy winter in England has set records tumbling, being the
wettest combined period for December and January since 1876-1877
and the second wettest since 1766, the Met Office has said.
