At Minnesota Zoo, there are now about 450 wild birds -- and counting -- on avian supervisor Jimmy Pichner's watch. That's because this month's opening of the zoo's 3M Penguins of the African Coast exhibit has added an initial group of 18 penguins, and that number is expected to grow to two dozen by fall.
One of the original zookeepers, Pichner has been with the zoo 33 years, since its 1978 opening in Apple Valley.
Growing up on a 250-acre dairy farm in southern Minnesota, Pichner loved the outdoors, aspired to work with animals and earned a degree in wildlife management from the University of Minnesota.
He got his start with the zoo's Tropics Trail and worked with primates and other animals before focusing on birds. He hadn't planned on making birds a speciality, but believes his mother's fondness for them must have been an influence.
Pichner read everything he could on penguins and spoke to other zookeepers who take care of them as he helped design the 1,500-square-foot exhibit, which re-creates South Africa's Boulders Beach, a signature penguin nesting site.
The exhibit includes a 7-foot-deep swimming pool, beaches and cliffs for nesting and nest boxes tucked away for sleeping and breeding.
One breeding pair has already been spotted staking out a corner of the ersatz beach.
"If I am successful in building an exhibit, the animals should do everything they do in the wild in the exhibit," Pichner said. "They should feel comfortable." And if they feel at home enough to reproduce, "that would be the coup de grâce."
