Seven penguins were found dead inside a temporary enclosure at the Calgary Zoo on Thursday morning, and zoo officials say it appears the birds may have panicked.
Zoo officials say the Humboldt penguins, a breed native to the southern coast of Chile and Peru, are believed to have drowned.
The circumstances that led to the deaths are under investigation.
“It seems to be some stressor led to these birds going into some kind of panic and having something occur to make them just so panicked,” the zoo’s director of animal Jamie Dorgan told CTV Calgary. “But it’s hard to say what would’ve triggered that.”
The zoo had been conducting renovations on the penguin enclosure and moved the 22 penguins into two separate holding rooms. The penguins were in the rooms for the past two days, and zoo officials say the penguins have been kept in the space without incident in the past -- sometimes as long as 30 days.
In one of the two rooms there was a pool of water that the penguins had access to overnight.
Zookeepers checked in on the penguins around 4 p.m. Wednesday. When they visited the room around 7 a.m. Thursday, seven of the penguins were found floating lifeless in the pool.
The penguins ranged in age from just a few months to seven years old. One of the penguins was recently hatched at the zoo.
Officials say the birds showed no signs of disease.
Dorgan said the seven deaths are “devastating” for the zoo’s population of Humboldt penguins.
“We have launched a full investigation so we can try to understand what happened and prevent further incidents like this from happening again,” he said in an earlier press release.
The zoo’s veterinary team has completed necropsies on all seven birds, and the results determined drowning as the cause of death.
The Calgary Zoo has three other species of penguins, including kings, gentoos and rockhopper penguins.
