Antarctic penguin plumps up in New Zealand

Jul 17, 2011 |

Happy Feet is getting fat and sassy in New Zealand. / MARK MITCHELL/Associated Press

Paddling penguin

Happy Feet, the bewildered Emperor penguin who took a 2,000-mile wrong turn and ended up in New Zealand last month, is a boy. Didn't you just know it?
Wellington Zoo officials say DNA tests confirmed the suspicions.
Officials still haven't figured out how they're going to transport him back to the ocean near the Antarctic. In the meantime, he's getting fat and sassy at the zoo.
Now that his belly has been cleared of the sand and sticks he ate on the beach, he's feasting on more than 4 pounds of salmon every day, thanks to public donations.
Happy Feet has gained 6 pounds since he was rescued. And he's getting feisty.
"When the vet grabs him for medication ... he's fighting a lot more. He's really looking good," said zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker.

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Hume: Animal celebrities and the disappearance of species

Published On Sat Jul 16 2011

Wellington Zoo resident vet Dr. Baukje Lenting, left, and manager of veterinary science Dr. Lisa Argilla care for an Antarctic penguin that wound up stranded on a New Zealand beach at Wellington Zoo on June 29. It may be months before the young emperor penguin, affectionately dubbed "Happy Feet," fully recovers. Mark Mitchell/AP

By Christopher Hume Urban Issues, Architecture

As Joseph Stalin might have put it: the death of one animal is a tragedy, the death of millions a statistic.
For several weeks now, the world has been anxiously following the saga of Happy Feet, an off-course emperor penguin that left the Antarctic and somehow ended up in New Zealand, injured but alive.
Since being found, the bird has received emergency surgery, been given a home in the Wellington Zoo, become a candy marketing tool and received sponsorships from a number of local businesses.
Once the lucky avian has recovered, it will be taken to a location from which it can make its way home again. A lot of people would be happy to be so well treated.

Meanwhile, back in the part of the world undiscovered by global media, Happy Feet’s species is under serious threat from climate change. Scientists say they might not survive beyond the end of the century.
Last week, alerted on Twitter, a gaggle of heroic British Columbians rescued four white-sided dolphins that had beached themselves on Vancouver Island. This was just the most recent example; there have been many over the years.
Though some dolphin species are faring better than others, their long-term prospects don’t look good. They are being “harvested,” poisoned, stressed, drowned and displaced around the planet.

Then there are the orphaned bears, lonely elephants, lost deer, marooned ptarmigans, stranded whales, oil-smothered pelicans, wounded raccoons, burnt koalas, finless sharks ... It seems all creatures great and small can expect their 15 minutes in the spotlight.
And let’s not forget the dogs that save their owners from certain death, that trek across continents to return home, and the cats that thwart thieves and sexual predators.
With every passing story we feel a little better, a little closer to the natural world and the animals with whom we not only share the planet but upon whom we depend. These tales warm our hearts or send us into frenzies of indignation.

Though it’s true we humans tend to favour furry and cute over scaly and cold, our emotions are real.
Yet experts warn we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction, and although the numbers vary wildly, species are disappearing faster than evolution can replace them. Similarly, natural resources are being consumed faster than they can be renewed.
Loss of habitat, global warming, pollution and overhunting and overfishing make life difficult, often precarious, for countless species. This isn’t because we don’t care about animals; obviously we do.
Perhaps this contradiction between feelings and actions is a variation of Hannah Arendt’s notion of “the banality of evil.” She coined the phrase in an essay on the notorious Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann, but the term describes the enormous destruction (evil) perpetrated by ordinary people going about their business, not psychopaths and monsters.

The degradation of the natural world happens not through the acts of a few evil geniuses but the cumulative effect of billions of individual decisions. It’s everyone’s fault — and therefore no one’s.
The fate of a species, a population, an ecosystem, is an abstract concept. By contrast, the plight of a single creature is specific, even personal. Every emperor penguin may be a potential Happy Feet, but only one is an actual animal celebrity.
And as the number of animals declines, the number of animal celebrities grows. They have become a regular feature of our lives, much sought-after by media. Perhaps that has something to do with the need to convince ourselves that we really do care, even though we don't.

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