Be With Us and FOR Penguins!

The 17 gentoo penguins who spent three weeks in temporary accommodation at Riga Zoological Garden are now gone to an aquarium in China. Will we have to wait another 50 years and rely on a lucky coincidence to see penguins again?

The image of the penguin in Latvia has become part of folklore since 2008, when Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis used it in his New Year's address, making it a symbol for economic ups and downs and a descriptor of the crisis period, when everyone like penguins had to "overwinter, pressing their backs together in one large circle". Almost a national bird, even though in its natural habitat it has never set a flipper here.

Just two weeks after the penguins arrived, the media reported that they had been seen by 35,000 visitors. The final figure is likely even higher. Representatives of Riga Zoological Garden acknowledged that the flamingo house, set up as temporary penguin accommodation, was the most visited attraction. However, housing penguins temporarily is not the same as setting up a permanent penguin house - that requires major financial investment.

That is why the grassroots project PenguinHouse (http://penguinhouse.lv) was created - initially to bring like-minded people together, and then to collect signatures and encourage a public vote on allocating funding for the creation and maintenance of a permanent penguin house. The dedicated website penguinhouse.lv offers news about penguins, videos and photos of penguins at Riga Zoological Garden and around the world, as well as information about the project's core idea.

Follow, comment and support the idea FOR penguins in Latvia on social networks Facebook, Twitter and Draugiem.lv!