IFAW Rehab'd Penguin spotted in breeding colony 3 yrs after release!

This post was filed by Valeria Ruoppolo, an International Fund for Animal Welfare vet based in Brazil...

The first time we saw penguin IF-0141 was back in May 2006. Together with 194 fellow Magellanic penguins, he had come ashore in the southern tip of Argentina. Victims of an unknown oil spill, the penguins were extremely weak and hypothermic - just moments away from death.

Rescue teams led by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Consejo Agrario Provincial de Santa Cruz (CAP) rushed to the scene and started caring for the birds but the extreme weather conditions at the bottom of the world made the rehabilitation process close to impossible. A critical step towards the penguin’s survival was regaining their feather covering’s waterproofing abilities. Constant exposure to the rehabilitation pools after the oil-cleaning stage is necessary for the rehabilitation to be successful, unfortunately with temperatures ranging from -4° to -14°C (24 to 7° Fahrenheit) teams struggled to keep the indoor pools warm enough and the penguins dry after their swim.

In an urgent bid to save the birds, the provincial government of Santa Cruz and the Argentine Air Force worked with IFAW to airlift 195 penguins to warmer weather up North. On July 11, 2006, the birds arrived to San Clemente del Tuyú home to Fundación Mundo Marino, IFAW’s collaborator in the rescue.

After a few weeks of rehabilitation, the first batch of penguins was released back to the ocean on July 31st, 2006.

Flash-forward to December 2009, just days from the turn of the decade we received news from Pablo Irazoqui, one of the Park Rangers working in Cabo Vírgenes. Pablo had spotted a band on one of the penguins. There he was, number IF-0141, more than 3 years and 2000 km (1242 miles) from where we last saw him swim off!

Pablo took a few pictures and told us that the penguin looked healthy and ‘calm’, less afraid than other penguins at the sight of humans. Pablo and his colleagues at the Park are keeping an eye out for IF-0141 to see if they can spot and document him in his nest with his chicks.

Once again, IF-0141’s story is positive-proof that wildlife can be successfully rehabilitated and released back to the wild. Seeing him healthy after all of these years is yet another cause for celebration as IFAW starts a new decade of rescuing animals in crisis around the world.

Comments

[Lau (desde el Sur!!)]

Great!!!!It`s comforting to know that beatiful work is paying off!