Moselle. Amnéville Zoo: How about feeding a penguin or a bear?

"Dip the soles of your shoes in this tub... It's to disinfect them before entering the Humboldt penguin area." Enzo, from the educational team at Amnéville Zoo , grabs a bucket of more than 4 kg of sprat, "the sardine's little cousin." Unsurprisingly, fish is on the menu for these friendly birds with atrophied wings, swift underwater but not very resourceful on land.

Come on, let's put on some gloves and throw a first fish into the pond, just to bait the thirty or so birds. Most of the penguins are jostling each other, braying, that little cry that sounds like that of a... donkey.

Fearful for the first few seconds, they quickly feel themselves growing wings and move forward clumsily until they snatch the fish outstretched. It's as if it's sucked in and swallowed in one go. "They eat three meals a day and ingest up to 1 kg of fish daily while they prepare to molt their feathers," explains Timothée Reichlin, head of the educational department. And to think that the penguin weighs only 4 to 5 kg...

Be careful, there is no question of feeding randomly, each specimen has a ring, a name, to which is attached a count of the number of fish swallowed at each meal. Everything is precise.

At Amnéville Zoo , their space reproduces their natural environment in Chile or Peru. Whether it's water for fishing or a rocky beach. Are these penguins nostalgic for the great outdoors? No, they were all born in captivity, either here or in a park: "It's about preserving a backup population, in case the wild population dies out."

On a completely different note, the bear. You can feed him too. But there's no question of entering his house, even on tiptoe. And yet, the very young Ural, 27 years old and weighing 400 kg, appears so gentle. But watching him tear apart an animal carcass with his large claws is thought-provoking.

"The bear is omnivorous. It feeds on plants, roots, fruits, vegetables... That's a ration of 20 kg per day, of which only 2 kg is meat or fish." So, at around 2:30 p.m., what are we going to give it to eat? It's cheese time, right? The bear loves it, "and it's not a legend, it also likes honey," but there's no question of overdoing it for this animal that is decidedly very close to Man.

Using a pair of tongs, food can be slipped behind the bars to Ural, who patiently awaits his snack. These special moments of sharing, in very small groups, also allow the public to learn valuable information about the different species.