Como Zoo welcomes its first baby tufted puffin
So fluffy!
The Como Zoo in St. Paul welcomed a new addition on July 31 — a sweet baby muffin of a puffin.
A tufted puffin, to be specific.
The zoo has exhibited puffins since 1987, but this is the first time a puffin chick has hatched at Como, according to its website.
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Born to first-time parents Bug and Rocky, the chick doesn’t have a name yet and will be kept from public view for its first 5 to 6 weeks of life — burrowing like it would in the wild. Zookeepers didn’t know the bird’s sex as of this week.
Here are some more tufted puffin facts from the zoo:
Baby puffins eat a steady diet of smelt and tiny herring.
Tufted puffins have a reputation for stealing bait off fishing hooks in the water.
They have sharp claws as well as webbed feet, making them great at swimming and climbing around rocky areas.