DRMumbai: Majid Al Futtaim, the leading shopping mall, retail and leisure pioneer across the Middle East and North Africa, is celebrating more than six years of Snow Penguins at Ski Dubai.
The feathery family of 10 King and 10 Gentoo Penguins arrived at their new, snow-tacular home in 2012 and since then have proved extremely popular with residents and tourists alike.
The team has also witnessed multiple pairings between the penguins and has since welcomed six happy and healthy chicks, with the Gentoo and King Penguin colony continuing to grow.
This progress is a credit to the resort’s Snow Penguin team who, upon the penguin’s arrival, began studying and documenting their progress and development, as part of a dedicated breeding programme.
On the anniversary, SherifHashem, Senior Marketing Manager, Ski Dubai said: “We are delighted to be saying ‘Happy Birthday’ to our much-loved Snow Penguins. The Penguin Encounter is an integral part of Ski Dubai’s offering and continues to provide many great moments for guests every day. Over the past few years, we’ve had over half a million guests visit our beloved penguins, so I’m sure they will want to celebrate this moment with us.”
Now with a colony of 28 penguins, the habitat highlights how Ski Dubai’s Snow Penguin Breeding Programme has gone from strength to strength over the last five years, nearly tripling in size.
“Fun aside, we also have to acknowledge that the success of the Snow Penguin Breeding Programme is really a testament to the hard work of our Snow Penguin Team who do great work day in, day out. We have now built a solid foundation to continue our work in this area, and as we move forward we will strive to further support a bigger, global and multi-generational research programme, benefitting penguin colonies around the world.”
Ski Dubai’s Snow Penguin Programme is supported by the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in the United States. Through this collaboration, Ski Dubai is able to support the research needed to help protect the penguin species.
Fifteen out of eighteen penguin species are either endangered or threatened in the wild and every Snow Penguin guest at Ski Dubai is helping support ground-breaking research on the penguin species and their well-being in wild.
Ski Dubai’s specially developed penguin habitat aims to provide the Snow Penguin colony with an environment which replicates their natural habitat. It keeps them protected, whether it is from outside predators, infections, or environmental threats including global warming. Enhancing awareness and driving education about the Penguin species continues to be an ongoing priority for Ski Dubai.
Penguin Encounters at Ski Dubai start at AED 225 per person and give guests an up-close and personal bonding session with at least two Snow Penguins. Guests can also experience the exclusive and ultimate Penguin Encounters which include additional feather-packed fun.
For an even more exclusive visit, guests eighteen years old and up also have the option to swim with the penguins in their underwater habitat. Ski Dubai’s Gentoo penguins have been trained to recognise shapes and colours and can discriminate between objects presented to them. This training was recently recognised at the 2016 International Marine Animal Association (IMATA) conference for Research Advancements.
Ski Dubai’s Professor Penguin Programme aims to educate guests about the penguin species. The programme welcomes children and schools to attend Penguin Encounters and learn about the animal’s anatomy, habitats, conservation statuses, global warming, pollution and how they can help to protect penguins in the wild.
