October 8th is African Penguin AwarenessDay. To celebrate this day I want to share a feature in an African penguin exhibit that brings visitors and penguins closer together: a unique 360 degree all-acrylic crawl-through viewing cylinder. You can experience this crawl-through cylinder at the recently opened Penguin Playhouse at Ripley's Aquariumof the Smokies in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
wild-design was part of the design team with the architecture firm HHCP andRipley's Entertainmentin-house designers.
That modesty disclaimer out of the way: the tunnel is awesome! It's a one of a kind feature that offers lots of funforkids (and adults - if they dare). Check it out yourself, or let me show it to you here.
Two penguins swimming over the all acrylic cylinder
This crawl-through cylinder is unique because there is no flat horizontal glass floor in the round tube. Usually walk-through or crawl-through cylinders have a flat floor. This absence of glass - and any other support structure - creates amazing transparency, as you can see on the photos. Only diving gets you closer to the animals.
Below is a photo looking back to the entry. I picked a couple photos without visitors to show you how transparent the tunnel is.
The acrylic floor feels softer andwarmer than glass, which makes it better for crawling on, and because the floor is chemically bonded it doesn't have any joints i.e. there's no silicon edge along the glass seam. It is completely smooth and allows you to slouch down the wall towards the floor.
Kids slouching in tunnel
A few other details make this tunnel unique, but before I get to them, let me show you how this cylinder fits into thevisitors' path through the exhibit.
If you follow the main visitor route, indicated by the orange arrow, you first encounter a large viewing panel, curved at one end and crowned by three large monitors at the other. Once you turn the corner to continue through the penguin exhibit, you can branch off into the crawl-through cylinder; marked here by a small red arrow.
I took this short clip from the main window. First you see the above water view into the exhibit then the camera dips down below the water level pointing towards the crawl-through cylinder.
Here the underwater view as a photo:
The bright reflection on the cylinder is not visible from inside it
Most adults won't see the cylinder from here because their eye level is too far above water level, while kids eyes are usually right around the water's surface. The path slopes slightly down to increase the water depth and allows adults a better view into the pool.
When they turn the corner visitors can leave the main visitor path and enter into the crawl-through cylinder thereby entering a secondary path. Mostly children do it; and this is where they can explore, have an adventure on their own, but still interact with the adults on the main path.
The interaction between the child and adult happens when a kid pops up in the vertical cylinder at the end of the crawl-through cylinder and, of course, they get a great close up view of penguins.
Children popping up in the middle of the exhibit next to penguins
Parents taking photos of their kids in the pop-up cylinder (orange arrow)
From a different angle during a keeper talk
From the pop-up cylinder the kids continue through another underwater viewing tunnel.
Children crawling along another penguin viewing tunnel
Kids looking at penguins above them
This second crawl-through tunnel is a candy-cane shaped acrylic panel that offers a 90-degree view to the pool. It is located on the penguin's fastest route between their nesting ground and the pool, thereforesightings of overhead penguin crossings are common. Here you can see what the children above are looking at:
The bird above is ready to hop out and is standing in about 2.5 inches (6cm) of water.
When thewave machine is off, as during the keeper talk, the water is so calm that you can watch the talk from underneath the water.
Children watching the keeper talk from underwater
Penguins standing on acrylic panel
The children's path ends here and merges with the main path.
I will continue this narrative and why this tunnel is unique with more details in a follow-up post.
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Meanwhile, and in celebration of African Penguin Awareness Day, I'd like to promote a couple of links that fit the occasion.
At the WAZA website (World Association of Zoos and Aquariums) you can find out what zoos and aquariums are doing to help African Penguins.
In South Africa, the penguin's native habitat, SANCOOB is helping these birds with a multitude of projects in close coordination with zoos and aquariums around the world. SANCOOB stands for Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds.
The life-story of Mrs. Althea Louise Burman Westphal, co-founder of SANCCOB, makes a great read.
Within the last year I have visited sixteen penguin exhibits - mainly because of a penguin project I have been working on. I made the following observation: the larger the water body the more birds I saw in the water. Water motion, like waterfalls, jets, waves etc. also seem to be a major factor.
Sure, sixteen random visits are not a study, and it might have been all coincidental. But during my recent visit to Japan I came across four penguin exhibits, quite by chance and at different times, and these four exhibits mirrored my observation perfectly.
Of these four exhibits, three were rather small and all penguins were just standing on land, except for one where a few birds of the flock enjoyed water jets in a shallow pool.
The fourth exhibit however had a huge pool - probably the largest penguin pool I have seen in my life - and a wave machine. There all birds were in the water. This exhibit is located at the Sea Life Park Aquarium, Tokyo, and I will show it here.
Below is video that I shot at the underwater window. Seeing all these animals moving in a flock was impressive.
On display were Humboldt penguins mixed with Rockhoppers, and in an area seperated by a fence they had a flock of Fairy penguins.
I didn't noticed the Rockhoppers when I was visiting but when I looked closer at the photo below I noticed that this is not a Humboldt penguin.
While this exhibit impressed me for its size, I was underwhelmed by what it had to offer the visitors. There was only one underwater viewing window and none for the Fairy penguins. The window had a high ledge, too high for smaller kids unless they were lifted right on it. And the upper window edge was rather low. Look at the guy on the left of the photo below and see how his eye level, water level and the upper window edge are on the same height. The underwater viewing was only accessible by staircases.
What was good was the length of the slightly concave window: ideal to observe the animals on their underwater flight.
The above water viewing was so high above the water table that it made it less interesting to observe the animals. The boy in the photo leaning over the railing is at least 2.5 meters (8') above the birds. There was no visitor viewing near the nest boxes which were all tucked away at the end and to the back of the exhibit.
However, despite these short comings I enjoyed my stay at this exhibit and I liked it a lot for what it had to offer the birds. I was particularly impressed by the shear number of birds doing their synchronized swimming pattern: simply amazing! Here is a video clip that shows it from above:
The Fairy penguins are separated by a fence from the Humboldts and Rockhoppers.
In the background of the photo below you can see the next boxes. (You might need to click on it and look at the enlarged version)
On the video below you can see the wave action at the beach. The wave is somewhat lost at the underwater viewing window, despite the fact that the top of the window is right at water level and I thought you could easily see the waves zooming by. But maybe the pool is too big, or the waves are too small?
Below I added notes to a satellite photo from Google Maps to give you an overview. From the photo I figured the pool measures about 35 meters (115') in length, and has a width of about 7 meters (23'). The land part of the exhibits is at least another 10 meters (33') passed the pool.
I couldn't tell whether this was a salt or fresh water exhibit.
I was there in April when it was still too cold for mosquitoes. However I heard that mosquitoes can become quite a nuisance even in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. I didn't see any traps or fans or other physical devices to deal with them. I assume that the birds are either treated with medicine or the avian malaria doesn't exist in Japan.
Bumblefoot or Pododermatitis
I once read that all diseases can ultimately traced back to the lack of oxygen in the tissue or organ. The source of this information might be somewhat flaky - a note pinned up in a yoga studio or a caption in some health magazine, I don't remember. But if this statement is true, than nothing would be better to prevent the bumble foot disease - a problem not uncommon with penguins in captivity - than exercise that gets the blood circulating and with it the oxygen. But if the penguins are spending hours on end standing on land because the water is not enticing enough for them to take a swim, the disease might be predetermined.
How does this effect the design of a penguin pool? For me it means: make the water as interesting as possible with jets, waves, obstacles, arches, varying water depth, large size pool for speeding longer stretches and easy turning radius, and having the right temperature, or maybe give them something interesting to look at underwater like a peek in the food prep room or a predator tank, or simply windows where they can observe the visitors.
Another benefit: Active animals are more fun to watch.
The acrylic floor feels softer and warmer than glass, which makes it better for crawling on, and because the floor is chemically bonded it doesn't have any joints i.e. there's no silicon edge along the glass seam. It is completely smooth and allows you to slouch down the wall towards the floor. 
If you follow the main visitor route, indicated by the orange arrow, you first encounter a large viewing panel, curved at one end and crowned by three large monitors at the other. Once you turn the corner to continue through the penguin exhibit, you can branch off into the crawl-through cylinder; marked here by a small red arrow. 
When they turn the corner visitors can leave the main visitor path and enter into the crawl-through cylinder thereby entering a secondary path. Mostly children do it; and this is where they can explore, have an adventure on their own, but still interact with the adults on the main path.
The bird above is ready to hop out and is standing in about 2.5 inches (6cm) of water. 
The children's path ends here and merges with the main path. 
