Melbourne, Australia – An emperor penguin found malnourished far from its Antarctic home on Australia’s southern coast is being cared for by a wildlife expert, a government agency said Monday.
The adult male was found on November 1 on a popular tourist beach in the city of Denmark in Australia’s temperate south-west – about 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) north of the icy waters off the Antarctic coast, according to a statement from Western Australia’s Department of Biodiversity. . Conservation and attractions.
The largest penguin species has never been reported in Australia before, said University of Western Australia research fellow Belinda Cannell, although some had reached New Zealand, Australia’s neighbor almost entirely south of Denmark. This is believed to be the northernmost area – and therefore furthest from their natural habitat – where a wild emperor penguin has ever been spotted.
DBCA via AP
“The farthest north they are from Antarctica is about 50 degrees south [latitude] According to my measurements, Ocean Beach is at 35 degrees south latitude,” Cannell told Australian national broadcaster ABC last week. “So a lot further north than anything they’ve ever tracked. Emperor penguins from Antarctica before.”
Cannell said she had no idea why the penguin traveled to the coast of Australia. She advises seabird rehabilitator Carol Biddulph, who cares for the penguin and sprays it with a chilled water mist to help it cope with its alien climate.
The penguin is 39 inches tall and initially weighed 51 pounds. A healthy male emperor penguin can weigh more than 100 pounds.
Western Australia’s biodiversity department said its efforts were focused on rehabilitating the animal. When asked if the penguin could possibly be returned to Antarctica, the department said “options are still being explored.”
Miles Brotherson/AP
ABC said last week that the wandering animal was first spotted by a local surfer from Denmark, Aaron Fowler, who told the channel that he and some friends were stunned when they first saw it emerge from the water.
“He stood up in the waves and just waddled straight towards us, an emperor penguin. He was probably about three feet tall and he wasn’t shy at all,” Fowler told ABC.
“There’s always some wildlife in the water, but never a penguin,” he said. “He tried to do that, a slide on his stomach, thinking it was snow, I guess, and just sat with his face in the sand and stood up and shook off all the sand.”
Emperor penguins are among the species directly threatened by the rising temperatures of the world’s oceans and seas. According to the World Wildlife Foundation, about three-quarters of the world’s breeding colonies of emperor penguins are vulnerable to fluctuations in annual sea levels. ice cover in Antarcticawhich have become much more erratic due to climate change.
The penguins breed and live on sea ice, but the ice in the Antarctic Sea is disappearing as our planet warms.
“They appear during breeding season and the ice isn’t there, so they have nowhere to breed,” says Dr. Birgitte McDonald, ecologist at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, which is funded and operated by 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 “the ice in one area was melting particularly early in the year,” putting emperor chicks at extreme risk.
“Emperor penguins — their survival, their ability to reproduce — is 100% tied to having suitable sea ice,” McDonald told CBS San Francisco.
