Penguins Given 'Happy Pills' in Soaking Britain

After weeks of rain and wind, miserable penguins at a marine center in England are being fed anti-depressants to cheer them up.

The 12 Humboldt penguins at the Sealife Center in Scarborough, northeast England, were showing signs of stress as they shivered through one of the wettest winters on record.

So it was decided to slip pills into the fish they are fed.

Although the penguins are accustomed to cold weather in their natural habitat of Peru and Chile, the constant rain has come as a shock to them.

"They are just not used to this type of constant, prolonged bad weather that we are having," a spokeswoman for the centre told AFP.

"They are under treatment for stress and we hope the tablets will have a calming effect on them."

Keepers noticed that the penguins were tending to huddle together for warmth rather than plunging into the water, which is their natural habitat, Lyndsey Crawford, the center's display curator, explained.

"Hopefully their instincts will kick in and they will realize they are not in any danger," she said.

The penguins have no idea that they are taking pills and suffer no discomfort as a result.

"They literally don't know anything about it. It's a tiny small tablet that fits into the gill of the fish. It doesn't taste awful," she said.

The rainy winter has set records tumbling, being the wettest combined period for December and January for England since 1876-1877 and the second wettest since 1766, the Met Office has said.

Humboldt penguins are threatened with extinction in Peru and Chile due to a range of factors including climate change, the over-fishing of the species that they feed on and problems with becoming entangled in fishing nets.

The Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition, organized by the Underwater Photography Guide, announces its 2013 winners. Here, a triggerfish is being cleaned at a wreck in the Red Sea.

Two kelp crabs defend their meal in waters off of Seattle.

This scene might look intimate, but these fish are actually fighting. Two blennies lock jaws near Blue Heron Bridge in Riviera Beach, Fla.

Two green sea turtles meet up at Tenerife, the largest of the seven Canary Islands.

Two manatee calves nurse in a family moment snapped at Crystal River, Fla.

This sea lion portrait was captured in Southern Australia.

A bait ball refers to a naturally occurring fish swarm. This diver in the Canary Islands certainly had a good view of one.

Blacktip sharks are active at dusk, as you can see in this shot of a shark near KwaZulu Natal, a province of South Africa.

Photographer Vanessa Mignon went eye-to-eye with a humpback whale near Vava’u, Tonga.

Water appears to be spinning around this Caribbean reef shark, photographed in the Bahamas.

Dolphins will sometimes eat jellyfish, but this enormous one doesn't appear to be on the dolphin’s menu.

The photographer moved in for a close-up of this squid in the waters off of northeast Taiwan.

The flower-like hydroid is actually a small marine predator related to jellyfish. Tiny crustaceans known as amphipods collect around the hydroid. They were photographed off Grand Cayman.

This pipefish makes contact with coral near Moalboal, Philippines.


Juveniles of many marine species stick together, like these flying fish. They were captured near the water’s surface off northeast Taiwan.

The pink of the algae really pops over a school of parrotfish in the waters off of Socorro Island.

"The tiny octopus stopped in my lights, intently studying me as I studied it," said photographer Jeffrey Millsen, "and then began to expressively posture and react to my every move."

This grey seal was timid at first, but couldn’t resist playing with the diver’s drysuit glove. The moment was captured in the waters off of Norway.

Red hues often signify danger in nature. This devil scorpionfish seems to be basking in its power, hanging out at Lembeh Strait, Indonesia.

A man takes his child for a first dip.