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| Cornish Seal Sanctuary
| | Issue 148
| August 2018
Special Edition
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First ever baby Penguin hatched at the Sanctuary
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After successfully hand-rearing, "Squidge" the miracle penguin chick has started swimming lessons.
"Squidge" the first ever penguin chick born at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, hatched from its egg on 27th May 2018 to parents Lola and Gilbert, a Humboldt Penguin pair at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary. | 
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Gilbert (left - green ID tag) and Lola (right - blue ID tag) have been paired up since 2013 and each year have tried their very best to incubate and rear their own chicks but are not the most natural of parents!
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The pair just spent too much time bickering over their new arrival rather than taking care of it.
The team noticed that Lola and Gilbert were not feeding the chick but in an attempt to give the parents more time to learn what they were meant to do, they decided to supplement the chick by giving regular syringe feeds of special blended food for birds.
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The chick was then put back on the nest to encourage Lola and Gilbert to feed the chick themselves. As the parents continued to bicker, the team sought advice from a specialist at Scarborough Sea Life. For the baby´s safety the decision was made to remove the chick in an attempt to hand rear it and give it chance to survive.
The Sanctuary team have never hand reared a penguin before so the team made regular calls to the experts to make sure everything was going to plan! This included sending over all the information they had on growth rates, feeding amounts and behaviour.
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Like all new-borns, the chick had very specific requirements and was having feeds up to 8 times a day, starting at 5.30am right through to 10pm.
The animal care team worked around the clock to ensure this little chick had the best chance and it´s thanks to their dedication that "Squidge" is going from strength to strength!
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The Sanctuary will not know the sex of the penguin until it is DNA tested in September but the team from very early on have nicknamed it "Squidge" due to a quickly expanding waistline!
Squidge had a swimming lesson on 8th August 2018 and was an absolute natural.
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Guests will start to see Squidge during their visits as the team will be taking the chick out throughout the day for swimming and Squidge will have visits to the penguin beach to slowly be introduced to the adults.
Click here to see a selection of photos of the Penguin Chick on our Fliker page.
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This news update has been put together by volunteers/supporters of the Cornish Seal Sanctuary.
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