Baby Penguins

Two penguin chicks made their debut at the Erie Zoo, just days before the facility will close for the winter.

The black-footed penguin chicks were born Nov. 12 and 13, but they haven't been named because blood tests needed to determine their gender haven't been completed.

Zoos try hard to breed black-footed penguins, because only 120,000 are believed to be left in the wild, down from more than 1 million in the 1940s.

The penguin chicks were displayed Monday. The zoo will close for the winter on Thursday, for the first time in its history, due to a lack of funding from the city. It will reopen March

Zoo officials say the baby chicks are healthy as can be, and weighed-in at aobut 3 pounds each. The zoo is also excited to announce that two other peguins have laid some eggs and should be new parents by the start of 2006. They hope to have even more Black-Footed peguins to breed at the zoo in upcoming years, so they can keep these endangered warm-weather peguins from extinction.