A pair of penguins is causing a severe cute alert at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo.
For some reason, the parental penguins just walked away from the eggs one day, so vets took over. They examined and saw that there was still a heartbeat inside the eggs so they put them into special incubators and waited for them to hatch.
One of the little critters hatched a couple weeks ago and the other, a week later. Even in the wild, penguins face difficult odds of survival but thanks to the dedication of the zoo staff, these two have a fighting chance to survive. Vets are caring for the pair around the clock.
"This guy's got a good chance," zoo director of animal care, Mike Muraco, said of the older bird, "he's doing very well."
They're known as blackfooted or jackass penguins. Muraco said that as adults, the birds make a noise similar to a donkey, hence the name. For now, they just make a lot of cute, squeaky peeping noises.
Neither of the little gray balls of fuzz has been named yet. The team at the zoo is superstitious and prefers to wait until the babies are well on their way to a healthy survival before they name them.
Muraco says that although they require a lot of work, the adorable babies make his job easy.
"This is the reason for being here," Muraco said.
