Melbourne, Australia — An emperor penguin discovered undernourished far from its Antarctic habitat, on the southern coast of Australia, is being cared for by a wildlife expert, a government department announced Monday.
The adult male was found Nov. 1 at a popular tourist beach in the town of Denmark in temperate southwest Australia, about 2,200 miles north of the icy waters of the Antarctic coast, according to a statement from the Western Australian State Department of Biodiversity. Conservation and attractions.
The largest species of penguin has never been reported in Australia before, said Belinda Cannell, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, although some have reached New Zealand, Australia’s almost entirely australian neighbor. southern Denmark. It is believed to be the furthest north – and therefore furthest from its natural habitat – that a wild emperor penguin has ever been sighted.
DBCA via AP
“The northernmost point from Antarctica is about 50 degrees south. [latitude] From my reading, Ocean Beach is 35 degrees south,” Cannell told Australian national broadcaster ABC last week. “So a lot further north than they ever tracked. emperor Antarctic penguins before.”
Cannell said she had no idea why the penguin had made it to the Australian coast. She advises seabird rehabilitator Carol Biddulph, who is caring for the penguin, by spraying him with a mist of icy water to help him cope with his alien climate.
The penguin is 39 inches tall and originally weighed 51 pounds. A healthy male emperor penguin can weigh more than 100 pounds.
Western Australia’s Department of Biodiversity said its efforts were focused on rehabilitating the animal. When asked if the penguin could potentially be returned to Antarctica, the department said “options are still being developed.”
Miles Brotherson/AP
ABC said last week that the stray animal was first spotted by a Danish surfer, Aaron Fowler, who told the channel that he and some friends were taken aback when they saw it come out of the water for the first time.
“It stood up in the surf and waddled straight towards us, an emperor penguin, it was probably about a meter tall, and it wasn’t shy at all,” Fowler told ABC.
“There’s always a bit of wildlife in the water but never a penguin,” he said. “He tried to do a belly slide, thinking it was snow, I guess, and he face-planted in the sand and got up and shook all the sand off.”
Emperor penguins are one of the species directly threatened by rising ocean and sea temperatures around the world. About three-quarters of the world’s breeding emperor penguin colonies are vulnerable to annual sea fluctuations, according to the World Wildlife Foundation. ice cover in Antarcticawhich have become much more irregular due to climate change.
Penguins breed and live on sea ice, but Antarctic sea ice is disappearing as our planet warms.
“They show up in the breeding season and the ice isn’t there, so they don’t have anywhere to breed,” said Dr. Birgitte McDonald, an ecologist at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, funded and administered by the San Jose State University. told CBS San Francisco last year.
An analysis by scientists at the University of Cambridge, published last year in the journal Science News, found that “ice in one area was melting particularly early in the year”, putting emperor chicks at risk. extreme.
“Emperor penguins — their survival, their ability to reproduce — is 100 percent tied to suitable sea ice,” McDonald told CBS San Francisco.
