Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
DRAPER — The romance reality shows "Love is Blind," "The Bachelor" and "Married at First Sight" are rife with betrayal and passion, but none come close to the dramatic love lives of the gentoo penguins at the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium.
"Love on Thin Ice" is a brand-new TikTok series the aquarium is releasing weekly, dedicated to the thrilling and suspenseful mating season of its penguin colony.
The whole idea started last year when Poppy the penguin became a homewrecker.
Poppy and Scamper had been mates for several years, but in 2023 she decided she needed a change.
"But instead of going for one of our available single males, she decided she wanted a male that already had a female partner," penguin keeper Karli Healy said.
Poppy kicked out the other lady, named Copper, and took her man Roto, leaving poor Copper alone for most of the mating season.
In another twist, Copper started hanging out with bachelor Milo, but it was too late in the season for them to mate.
The penguin keepers figured they could make a show out of all the drama, and so when the 2024 breeding season began, they hopped on it.
The colony
The video series aims to educate the public on the breeding behaviors of penguins. Contrary to popular belief, not all species of penguins will mate for life, and only two species of penguins will have the fathers keep the eggs on their feet.
Gentoo penguins pair up for the breeding season, build a nest with rocks to place their egg in, and take turns sitting on the egg to keep it warm and incubate it.
"Raising a penguin chick and incubating the egg is definitely a two-penguin job," Healy said. "They will get very, very territorial over their nest areas. They will pick a nest area, pick a partner, build a nest — and that can sometimes be a dramatic process."
Healy said it really depends on the penguin, but a lot of penguins will have one mate for a few years then switch to a different one. Coco and Gossamer, however, are like the old married couple of the colony and have been mates since 2012 when the aquarium first got them.
The aquarium has nine females and 11 males, which ends up providing extra drama in the breeding season as some penguins end up without a partner.
"They will sometimes return to the same partner and other times decide to try someone new. We don't know if there's a particular thing that sets them off to make that decision," Healy said. "Every year is a new adventure of: Are we going to have the same partners, or is somebody going to change it up and pick someone new?"
Runner and Meg were mates for several years while Ghost Rider and Georgia were paired up. Then one year, they just decided to flip and have been with the opposite partner ever since, Healy said.
"I don't remember there being a lot of drama that year. I just was looking in the nest and was like, 'That's a different penguin. Well, OK!'" Healy said.
Other times, switching partners is not such a seamless process. Healy said because they are so territorial, the animals will make it known if the wrong penguin is in the wrong space.
"They will sometimes yell, chase them, bite at them. When they get really mad, they flap their flippers really hard and hit each other," she said. "Sometimes there literally is physical drama."
Some penguins will even steal rocks from other penguins' nests to add to their own, and other times the penguins will fight about who gets to keep a certain nest area.
Aquarium social media specialist Ashley Garcia said the two-minute episodes have already started gaining traction on the internet, and the aquarium will release behind-the-scenes videos and breaking news updates throughout the week if something crazy happens in the colony.
"We primarily want to educate about gentoo penguins and our colony here, but also to give the people some entertainment and show how dramatic the penguins can be," Garcia said.
Garcia has been spending a lot of time observing the penguins to make new episodes of "Love on Thin Ice," but she said she has to get all of the "iced tea" from the keepers since they are with the penguins more often.
Care and protect
Garcia said the series has been received well, with one episode garnering more than 208,000 views. She said people will frequently comment things like, "I love this more than 'Love is Blind" or "This is 'The Bachelor' I want to watch."
"It really makes it worth it for us to see that people are really enjoying it," she said. "I'll be in here getting video content and I'll hear side conversations about the show, and people saying, 'I wonder what Ava is doing now,' and 'Ooh, I wonder who that is? Is that Coco?' It's been really awesome to hear and just further solidifies why we're doing it."
Garcia said education on animals helps break misconceptions about aquariums and zoos and gives the aquarium a chance to show the animals are being treated well.
"They're really well taken care of and we want people to connect with them, especially because people protect what they care about. We want them to take what they see here and take it into conservation and preservation initiatives all over," she said.
Healy echoed the same idea and said the video series is "one of the best ways" to share information on the penguins. She said people like to talk about how cute and fun penguins are, but it can be hard to relate to a creature that likes to swim in 40-degree water and live in 35-degree weather.
"That's not a common practice for most people," Healy joked.
But by relating it to a dating show where people understand, connect with and are entertained by the penguins, people will start asking questions to learn more about penguins and their behaviors.
"It's a different way to kind of connect people with the animals and help them learn something new about them," she said. "In my experience ... that's when you really start to care about the animals."
"When people start to care about them more, then they might be more interested to participate or contribute to conservation efforts, or find out what things are threatening penguins and see what they can do to help. Even just looking up information about them is better than just, 'Oh look! A cute penguin,'" Healy said.
Garcia said they're planning to continue the show through the end of breeding season, when the eggs are laid in May or early June. The drama might fluctuate from week to week, especially once all the mates are chosen and the eggs get laid, but episodes will still come out weekly.
Then hopefully, the aquarium will be welcoming several new chicks this summer.
