Thursday, April 12, 2012
Japanese
keepers looking for a penguin on the run in Tokyo have stood down their
month-long search but say they hope the bird’s impending adulthood will
give it away.
Staff at Tokyo Sea Life Park said
Thursday they are no longer combing riverbanks every day looking for
any sign of the creature, which fled captivity in early March.
“Although we believe the penguin
is doing OK somewhere in a river near Tokyo Bay, we don’t know what else
to do after nearly a month of searching,” the park’s Takashi
Sugino told AFP.
“Maybe it moved to an area far away from the park, in which case it’s hard for us to find as Tokyo Bay is rather big.”
Keepers have asked birdwatchers
for help in tracking down the escapee but despite an initial flurry of
news, they have received no credible information for some time.
“We hope to get fresh sightings
in August, when the bird molts and its adult black-and-white feathers
emerge because it will be easier for ordinary people to recognise it as a
penguin,” he said.
The hunt for the Humboldt penguin began after the one-year-old bird was snapped bathing in the mouth of a river.
Keepers believe the 60-centimetre
(24-inch) bird made its break for freedom after scaling a rock twice
its size, in an escape that has been compared with the exploits of
animals in the animated hit film Madagascar.
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