Endangered penguin chicks hatched at Chester zoo named after plants

In previous years Chester zoo’s new penguin chicks have been named after crisps – Frazzle, Wotsit – and local football club owners – Ryan, Rob – but the names p … p … p … picked this year are notably less frivolous.

“We’ve decided to go with plants,” said Zoe Sweetman, the penguins and parrots team manager at the zoo. Two of the spikier new arrivals have been named Nettle and Thistle while two others with “colourful personalities” have been named Daffodil and Tulip.

The zoo announced on Friday the arrival of 11 penguin chicks, the highest number to hatch during “hatching season” for a decade.

All are Humboldt penguins, considered among the most at-risk of the world’s 17 penguin species and listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“This year has been a really good year for the penguins with the arrival of 11 new chicks,” said Sweetman. “We’re delighted to say that all of the chicks are looking really healthy and the parents have done a superb job of caring for their new arrivals up to this point.”

Sweetman said the main role for human keepers was to ensure the adult penguins had everything they needed in order to raise their young.

“Sometimes this can mean providing extra fish, which the parents swallow, churn into a high-protein soup and then regurgitate to feed the chicks,” she said. “We also weigh the chicks regularly so that we can monitor their development – on average they’ve gone from a mere 80g to 2.5kg in just 40 days. It’s been a huge team effort.”

Choosing a theme for names is a fun part of the process. In previous years, as well as crisps the themes have included fruit (Plum, Banana, Lemon among them) and NHS heroes and hospitals (including Florence and Countess).

Last year two new male arrivals were named after the Hollywood owners of Wrexham AFC, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, a move that raised the hackles of a small number of Chester FC fans. “So weird when the city [Chester] has its own football team,” said one put-out Facebook user.

Sweetman said the bumper hatching this year, which took place from 11-18 April, meant “we could have chosen to name after an entire football team”. They went for plants, with another confirmed name being Dandelion.

The zoo says the naming process helps bring much-needed attention to a species that is so vulnerable.

Humboldt penguins are found on the rocky coastal shores of Peru and Chile and face threats from climate change and over-fishing of their food sources.