Penguin mourned at Maryland Zoo

Maryland Zoo in Baltimore workers are mourning the bird they called 10-63.

Veterinarians called in a specialist to try to correct a congenital spine defect that plagued the 6-month-old male penguin. He had been recovering until Friday, when workers found 10-63 lying in a corner of his enclosure at the zoo’s hospital.

“We are really saddened by his death, but we learned a lot from the surgery and from his after-care,” zoo veterinarian Carol Bradford said.

Zoo staff are awaiting a detailed necropsy, an animal autopsy, from Johns Hopkins University before determining a cause of death, but Bradford said, “preliminary reports indicate he may have had a respiratory condition, possibly due to being hospitalized and the operation.”

The Maryland Zoo has a colony of about 51 African penguins living at Rock Island, one of the zoo’s most popular exhibits. They breed enough young each year to supply other zoos, she said.