Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Ask the Times: Happy Feet, the penguin found stranded in New Zealand, is making progress

Times staff, wires
In Print: Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Happy Feet is making progress
Do you have an update on what happened to the penguin that ended up in New Zealand?

Happy Feet, as the emperor penguin has been named, is at the Wellington Zoo, where he is gaining strength so he can be released into the ocean, the New Zealand Herald reported. The juvenile penguin was found June 20 on Peka Peka Beach, north of the capital city of Wellington, where he had been eating sand, sticks and rocks. Happy Feet had to have several procedures to remove the debris from his stomach.
"There are a lot of factors we need to consider just to keep him safe on the journey, so we just need to work through that and make sure we take him down south and have a successful release," Wellington Zoo veterinary science manager Lisa Argilla told the Herald. "We are not prepared to rush that, obviously — because if you rush it, it's going to go wrong."
It is believed Happy Feet swam nearly 2,000 miles from Antarctica to New Zealand. This is only the second recorded time that an emperor penguin has been found in New Zealand and the first since 1967, according to the Herald.
No time has been set for Happy Feet's release, though the Associated Press said it could come soon. Argilla will have to approve the schedule based on how much stress it would cause the penguin and transportation must be selected.
"It'd have to be a boat that can take the penguin that has some form of chilling on it, that can take the media, and that is licensed to go that far south," Department of Conservation biodiversity program manager Peter Simpson told the Herald.
Until he's released, Happy Feet can be seen on his own live webcam:
3news.co.nz/Video/3NewsLiveStream/HappyFeetlivestream.aspx (click on the arrow).
More than 100,000 people are following his movements already.
One woman wrote an e-mail saying she was ill but taking "a lot of comfort in simply watching the penguin," according to the Associated Press. "It's kind of like O. Henry's story The Leaf," wrote the woman, identified as Janet in Chicago. "I feel as long as the penguin does well, I'll do well."

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