Dinner with the penguins in a refrigerated hangar in Dubai: the new frontier of exploitation that makes it clear

In Dubai, in the middle of the desert, there are those who pay to dine and have lunch next to penguins. The experience, proposed by Ski Dubai inside a shopping center, promises a “close” meeting with royal penguins and Gentoo. But behind the soft lights and themed tables, there is a very less idyllic reality: animals stolen from their natural habitat or born in captivity, forced to live in a refrigerated hangar and move from one table to another to entertain customers.

A life far from authentic ice

These Arctic animals, accustomed to enormous expanses of ice and natural climatic conditions, spend their existence in an artificial environment, regulated by thermostats and fixed -hour lights. Each interaction is marked by a commercial program: the penguins enter, are shown to visitors, photographed and then reported in their housing area. They cannot express typical behaviors of their species, such as swimming in the open sea or looking for food, because every moment of their day is planned to meet the needs of the show.

Visitors receive precise instructions on how to behave: no flash, slow movements, don’t get too close. But the contradiction is evident: if the goal was really animal welfare, they would not be used as a tourist attraction. The idea of “sensitizing” the public to protect fauna through imprisonment in a shopping center is a paradox. Instead of promoting conservation in places of origin, the vision of wild animals as an entertainment from the living room normalizes.

A dear price luxury for their freedom

The experience is sold as an exclusive, with reservations to make weeks before and high costs. Customers have lunch and gone comfortably while the penguins are brought by a trainer in the center of the room, forced to remain still and “presentable” in the midst of noises, smells and lights. The result? Private animals of the possibility of deciding where to go and with whom to interact. All this for a couple of photos and the memory of a “special” dinner.

What fun can there be in looking at an animal out of one’s habitat, away from his pack and deprived of the freedom to move? A penguin does not belong to a shopping center, and no scenography, however well built, will be able to replace the vastness of the ocean and ice that nature has destined for it.

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