Animal welfare campaigners have called for the release of 15 penguins “trapped in a basement without sunlight or fresh air” at the Sea Life London Aquarium – with former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey daring the company’s chief executive to swap places with the birds.
The Free The Fifteen demonstration, organised by Freedom For Animals with support from Born Free and The Express newspaper, saw between 250 and 300 people attend on Sunday morning to protest against the captivity of 15 gentoo penguins at the riverside attraction in Westminster.
The aquarium owned by Merlin Entertainments opened its first penguin exhibit in May 2011, introducing 10 gentoo penguins from Edinburgh Zoo who “have now endured 14 years in a basement” equipped with a pool of only six to seven feet deep, according to campaigners.
Musician-turned-environmentalist Feargal Sharkey, who attended the protest, accused the company of exploiting the birds for profit – and dared the new Merlin Entertainments chief executive Fiona Eastwood to “swap places with the penguins”.
“In fact, if she’s prepared to actually spend a month down there with those penguins, I will donate £1,000 of my money to a charity of her choosing,” Mr Sharkey said.
“As we now know, some of them have been there for 14 years, in the basement of a former council building.
“It’s a shocking indictment, not only that actually, clearly, Merlin is now set up to benefit nobody but their shareholders.
“There is no reason that they should be benefiting at all from imprisoning 15 birds in the basement of an old council building.
“It’s idiotic. It’s a nonsense, and it’s got to stop,” Mr Sharkey added.
Merlin Entertainments is co-run by Blackstone Group, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), and Kirkbi, the investment arm of the Lego family.
The British theme park giant owns a wide range of attractions across the UK, including Alton Towers, Legoland Windsor, Madame Tussauds, Thorpe Park, and Chessington World of Adventures.
A spokesperson for the Sea Life London Aquarium said in a statement on Sunday the penguins’ habitat was “designed with help and advice from specialist vets,” adding: “It provides an excellent balance of water and land for the penguins which enables them to express their normal behaviours and there is space for them to ensure they have sufficient privacy.”
But naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham CBE, who was also at the protest, rejected the venue’s claims and called it “a blight on the reputation of London’s attractions”.
“I could get some specialist architects to build you and me a house in an asbestos factory – we wouldn’t want to live in it, would we? It’s bullshit,” Packham said.
“Do we really want that reputation stained by a greedy company that’s keeping some birds in a basement for profit and with no conservation and/or other educational value?”
He added: “We’ve learned sufficiently enough about their (the penguins’) behavioural, physiological and ecological needs to know that if you’re going to keep to these animals in captivity at all, you need a custom-built facility, and it’s certainly not one that’s in the bunker of a building underground, where they never see sunlight and they never get fresh air.
“It’s not acceptable, they’ve got to move them.”
Packham added the company has the financial means to relocate the birds to a more suitable facility in the UK, like the London or Edinburgh Zoos, which are equipped with outdoors penguin enclosures.
“It would be a win-win-win: win for the penguins, win for the zoos who could afford to update their facilities further, and a win for Merlin because they could clear their conscience which is otherwise blighted by this hideous, hideous condition of these birds,” Packham said.
Wildlife TV presenter and author Megan McCubbin, who attended the protester with stepfather Packham, said Gentoo penguins were “one of the most amazing species that we have on our planet.”
“And they’re trapped in what I can only describe as a horrible, dingy, dark basement,” she said.
“And when you walk through – and I’ve only been once and I will never go again – you can’t help but feel heartbroken about them.
“You can’t put human emotions on animals because you don’t understand what they’re thinking or feeling, but sometimes when you look into an animal’s eyes, you just know.”
Sea Life London Aquarium further said in their statement they were “committed to supporting conservation causes globally” though their Breed, Rescue, Protect programme focused on endangered species.
But Green energy industrialist Dale Vince, who also attended the protest, said expert conservationists today agree that there is “no conservational value in zoos”.
“And there’s no conservation value in breeding penguins in this basement here,” he added.
Freedom For Animals launched their Free The Fifteen campaign in January 2024.
The organisation argued that since gentoo penguins are not classified as an endangered species, they is no justification for breeding and keeping them in captivity.
They have also launched a petition which has so far gained the support of more than 13,000 people.
As of this year’s stocktake, Sea Life aquariums counted more than 30,000 sea creatures across 11 centres in the UK.
