Did two men break into the penguin exhibit at the San Diego Zoo and did they dress up the animals as surfers? No, there's no evidence for that: A viral Facebook post had an image that did not match the layout of the penguin exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. The zoo itself did not issue any statements on their social media accounts about such an incident and there were no news reports about it.
The viral story appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) published on October 30, 2025 and it read:
Security cameras at a San Diego zoo captured two men breaking into the penguin exhibit and dressing the birds up as surfers. The intruders managed to slip miniature wetsuits, sunglasses, and even tiny board shorts onto several penguins before fleeing the scene.
Zoo officials confirmed all penguins are safe, though keepers had to gently remove the outfits this morning. Local police are now reviewing the footage and asking the public for help in identifying the suspects. When asked about the incident, one zookeeper couldn't help but laugh: "Surf's up," he said, watching the penguins waddle like they were ready for the beach.
This is what the image that went with the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Sat Nov 1 15:01:23 2025 UTC)
The image of the penguin enclosure in the image did not resemble the one visible in the zoo's actual penguin cam:
(Image source: screenshot of https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/cams/penguin-cam)
There was no trace of the story on the News Releases page of the zoo (archived here) nor on the zoo's X or Facebook accounts (archived here and here) at the time of writing. A Google News search for news stories mentioning penguins, surfers and the San Diego Zoo did not return any results confirming the story (archived here).
The transparency tab (archived here) of "Curious Zone", the Facebook page that posted the story, showed it identified itself as a "Digital Creator", listed several name changes and indicated it was being run from North Macedonia:
(Image source: Facebook page transparency tab for "Curious Zone")
Lead Stories reached out to the zoo and will update this story when a reply is received.
