This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything on this show, and we love your stories.

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Today, you're going to hear from Maria Eldon.

Maria is the zoological manager of birds, the St. Louis Zoo.

She'll be speaking on behalf of Enrique, a 30-year-old penguin with arthritis, who just so happens to wear shoes.

Enrique is a southern rock hopper penguin, and he is an elderly bird. He's about 30 years old.

Penguins tend to live about 15 years old. Penguins that live in zoos live a very cushy life.

He's just a gentle bird.

He is really easygoing.

That's unlike rock hoppers a little bit.

Rockhoppers are very vivacious, very in your face,

but Enrique kind of has a softer side to him.

He is quite the handsome little bird.

He's got a girlfriend, and apparently as we found out this morning, another female liked what she saw.

So this morning he had two girlfriends.

Enrique came to St. Louis Zoo in 2016 and he, prior to that, had lived at Omaha Zoo.

Zoos talk to each other a lot, and before any zoo receives any animal, there is a lot of communication,

what does the animal like, what does it not like,iors that are good and maybe some that are not so good.

And the veterinarians also receive a lot of information about medical history.

He had signs of arthritis already at that point.

And so there was no surprise.

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