Wrong turn? Happy Feet, the broken penguin.

Nobody quite knows where or why, but Happy Feet the wayward Penguin got lost.

Not ‘turned down the wrong street and ended up at a 7/11, did you say turn left at the red sign’ lost but ‘3000km out of his way’ lost. He’s now apparently the penguin equivalent of Clyde the himalayan cat who went missing in Tasmania and turned up three years later in Outback Queensland. How? Well, nobody really knows. Cats don’t have opposable thumbs, so presumably hitchhiking was out of the equation.

Happy Feet, the juvenile Emperor Penguin, was seriously out of his patch. He was meant to be in Antarctica (and now probably very late for something) but wound up on a sandy beach in New Zealand. Penguins sometimes eat snow to cool down, but in its absence Happy consumed about 400g of sand which proved to be a gritty and wholly unsatisfying error.

We can only suggest that Happy is not very good at being a penguin. And probably lamenting the fact he didn’t evolve wings all those years ago.

He’s now on his fourth operation to remove the sand from his stomach at Wellington Zoo and is recuperating there until he is well enough to be released into the ocean of South-East New Zealand.

And then … what?

Probably end up in Vancouver, really. They can’t just take him to Antarctica (in case of disease and presumably incomplete emperor penguin travel policies) but a penguin who wasn’t very good at doing penguin things in the first place probably doesn’t deserve to be unceremoniously jettisoned into the deep blue ocean where his troubles all began.

They’ve even set up a Penguin Advisory Committee for the task, according to the Marlborough Express:

“A specially formed Penguin Advisory Committee has decided the best option would be to release him in the sub-Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean. However, Dr Argilla warned that even doing this would have its risks and Happy Feet would need to be taken some distance from land. “He’s a bit of a sand eater.”

And a local chip company has donated $20,000 to the Save Happy Feet Appeal. He has his own appeal!

Why can’t he live at the zoo? With the kiwis and the exotic animals too?

What petition do we sign? Stop the boats … that deliver him back out to that wide blue yonder.

For those who are at all curious, there is a live-streaming video of his enclosure that you can watch day and night. Hint: he does not do very much. Kind of just sits there.

Side note: how cool is it that he made it into the Hindu News? Very.

What story lately has had you completely captivated, against all reason? Happy Feet the disastrously GPS-less penguin? Something more serious?

Also, when have you been really, really, really lost?