Huffin and Puffin

The three species of puffin - Atlantic, tufted, and horned - are often confused with the penguins, and not without cause.  Both groups are predominately black and white.  Both eat fish and aquatic invertebrates.  Both are associated with oceans in cold climates - the puffins in the Northern Hemisphere, the penguins in the Southern.  Both live in large colonies.  And both have a body plan that looks roughly like what you'd get if you were somehow able to cross a duck with a bowling pin.  Visitors seeing puffins often walk away with the assumption that they were penguins.

The two groups are very different, however.  Puffins are more closely related to gulls and other shorebirds.  Puffins break up their black-and-white monotony with big, colorful bills of red and yellow.  Also, whereas penguins are famously flightless, puffins can fly.  Their big beaks and cheeky antics have sometimes earned them the nickname of "Parrots of the Sea."

Maybe because they have everything penguins have, plus the added dimension of flight, but I've always been more interested in puffins than penguins.  Maybe that's in part because I see so many more penguins that puffins always strike me as a bit of a novelty.  Penguins, especially the warm-weather species, like the African penguin, are much, much better represented in zoos.  I've probably seen more African penguins this year than I have puffins - of all three species - in my life.

Penguins are just easier to deal with.  They are flightless, so they don't need enclosed exhibits.  Some species are temperate, and so can be kept outdoors in parts of the country.  Outdoor puffin exhibits do exist, but I've never seen one... yet.  Penguins also benefit from better name recognition.  Everyone knows what a penguin is.  Mention "puffin" and you've got maybe a 50-50 shot of someone knowing them.  The latter is especially surprising, because unlike penguins, puffins are actually native to parts of the US, to say nothing of much of northern and western Europe and zoo-loving Japan.  Plus, you'd think as much as zoos love polar bears (even though they are far less common than they used to be), more zoos would consider adding puffins as a side exhibit.

In the places where I have seen puffins, I've found them to be great exhibit animals - though the fact that they can fly means that they are kept behind glass, which tends to get water-stained and make photography challenging.  I've definitely seen a few small, indoor African penguin exhibits which I feel like could have been better repurposed for puffins.  I've spent a considerable amount of my career in the company of penguins - not much of it as a keeper of them, but usually in zoos where they are omnipresent, transporting them, answering visitor questions about them, etc.  I've never spent quality time with puffins.  I'd like to see them from the other side of the glass one day, if only to see if they really are as parrotlike in person as I like to believe.