Meet Pikachu: the newest penguin who just helped Mumbai’s zoo hit capacity

Four new arrivals have quietly pushed the Humboldt penguin colony at Mumbai’s Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Botanical Garden and Zoo to 25 birds, and one of them answers to the name Pikachu. Zoo officials confirmed that the births, spread across the past year, were kept under wraps until each chick was declared medically stable enough to be added to the public count.

Pikachu, a male, was the first of the four, born in October 2025. A female named Lily followed in January 2026, and two more chicks, Leo and Bella, arrived in February. According to zoo officials, Pikachu, Leo and Bella were born to the pair Donald and Daisy, while Lily is the offspring of Popeye and Olive.

With the four new chicks counted, the existing penguin enclosure has now reached its designed capacity of 25 birds. That milestone has prompted the civic body to plan an expansion of the facility, which currently spans around 2,000 square feet and will be enlarged to 3,000 square feet, raising its capacity from 25 to 40 penguins.

The expansion will be carried out by integrating an adjoining space into the existing enclosure, and preparatory work is already underway. Officials said the integration is likely to begin toward the end of the year, during which all 25 penguins may be moved to the zoo’s quarantine facility for about two to three months. The penguin exhibit is expected to remain closed to visitors for that period.

The growing colony has also pushed the zoo to look at relocating some of its birds elsewhere. Officials said they approached other zoological parks across the country, first proposing exchanges and later offering penguins as outright donations, but found little interest. ‘The infrastructure required to house Humboldt penguins is highly specialised and expensive. Maintaining the habitat involves advanced temperature control, water filtration and veterinary care, which many zoos are not equipped for,’ a civic official said. In July 2023, the BMC had written to Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad listing one male and one female Humboldt penguin among seven species proposed for exchange, but no proposal has materialised so far.

The Humboldt penguins were introduced to Byculla Zoo in 2016 from South Korea and have since become the zoo’s biggest draw, pulling in thousands of visitors every week and contributing significantly to its revenue.

Wikimedia Commons/by Pradeep717