A group of 18 penguins returned to Atlantic waters last week after successful rehabilitation from an aquarium in Argentina.
The penguins were suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, hypothermia and parasitism when they were spotted in different areas of Buenos Aires province between February and April this year. The group comprised 17 magellanic penguins (Spheniscus Magellanicus) and a rockhopper penguin (eudyptes chrysocome), as per a report from the EFE, a Spanish international news agency.
A clip shared by the EFE on YouTube shows the group of penguins being transported to the ocean and getting released from a cage. The penguins are seen waddling back to the ocean and as they approach the water, they hurry and get submerged in it.
Watch the video here:
“They appeared stranded on the beach with a condition known as the ‘stranded penguin’ syndrome, which by not finding enough food loses the ability to thermoregulate and leaves our shores starving,” Sergio Rodríguez Heredia, biologist and head of the rescue centre of the Marine World Foundation, was quoted as saying by Euro24. The penguins were given thermal therapy and hydrated through liquefied fish.
Reports related to penguins often grab attention online. A young penguin that fled a zoo in Hungary’s Budapest was spotted waddling through the middle of a road at night. A tongue-in-cheek social media post by officers of the Budapest Police headquarters had left netizens in splits. “As it would have been a long walk to Antarctica, they caught the bird, wrapped in a blanket, and handed over,” the law enforcement agency wrote on Facebook.
