Brazil Uses Airforce To Fly Lost Penguins Home

In the cutest emergency airlift you can imagine, 370 Magellanic penguins were airlifted by the Brazilian air-force 2,000 miles back to their home. The confused penguins, who normally live in southern Argentina and Chile, somehow ended up on the beaches of Rio, way north of their normal stomping (waddling?) grounds.

Oceanographer Lauro Barcellos said that 2008 has seen a dramatic rise as hundreds of the animals have been carried to Brazil by strong ocean currents. “This year is completely anomalous,” Barcellos said. “I’ve worked in this field for 35 years, and I have never seen anything like this.” Most of the penguins washing up on Brazilian shores are emaciated or deceased following the ocean journey.

Pics of the rescued penguins, and a happy ending, after the jump:

This year alone, almost 1,000 penguins washed up in northeastern Brazil, which is 2,000 miles away from their breeding grounds. Out of that 1,000, twenty percent have already died, and the rest were too weak to survive the flight home.

The penguins receive glucose injections, vitamins, and antibiotic treatments for worms and fungus. “Sometimes they’re not strong enough to breathe,” said Thiago Muniz, one of the veterinarians. “A lot have died because of fatigue.”

The ones that were strong enough to be released back into the wild got to ride on an air force C-130 turboprop plane which would normally transport heavy military cargo. Once they reached southwest Brazil, the penguins were herded towards the ocean until natural instincts kicked in.

Experts hope a small group of older penguins released along with the young ones will help guide them south to Patagonian waters. Onlookers cheered as the young Magellanic penguins were set free on a beach in southern Brazil and scampered into the ocean, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a statement.

And there you have it, your daily dose of scampering penguins.

Penguins Ride Air Force Jet to South Atlantic [ABC]
Brazil launches airlift to return hundreds of penguins washed ashore on Rio beaches… 2,000 miles north of their home [Daily Mail]