Penguins nursed back to health and returned to the wild in Brazil

[Jenna]

In Brazil, 373 young Magellanic penguins were rescued, rehabilitated and released last weekend after their search for food left them stranded, hundreds of miles from their usual feeding grounds.
Animal-welfare activists loaded the birds onto a Brazilian air force cargo plane and flew them 1,550 miles to the country's southern coast, where a crowd of onlookers celebrated as the penguins marched back into the sea.
"We are overjoyed to see these penguins waddle back to the ocean and have a second chance at life," said veterinarian Dr. Valeria Ruoppolo of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the group that oversaw the rescue. See photo gallery of rescued penguins »
Magellanic penguins are warm-weather birds that breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile. The young animals then migrate north between March and September, following their favorite fish, the anchovy. The birds are named after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who first saw them in 1519.
But changes in currents and water temperature apparently confused the juvenile birds, who strayed too far north to the warm beaches of Salvador, Brazil, 870 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Watch the penguins march into the sea »


Starting in mid-July, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahía, "It was just about raining penguins," Ruoppolo said. "There was not much of a food supply. The birds were stranded and emaciated. They had lost all their muscles and body condition."




full story:http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science...ins/index.html

[Pinki]

Awww. I luv penguins

[Caveman]

But changes in currents and water temperature apparently confused the juvenile birds, who strayed too far north to the warm beaches of Salvador, Brazil, 870 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

And I'm sure its all George Bush and John Mccain's fault.

[Jenna]

And I'm sure its all George Bush and John Mccain's fault.

[Ducky]