Happy Feet the Penguin

Happy Feet

Happy Feet the Emperor Penguin turned up on our shores not far from where I live.  He was very, very off course.  He was eating sand thinking it was snow and the sand stuck in his stomach and was beginning to set like concrete. 

He was taken to Wellington Zoo to have the sand removed and kept in a cool room with ice and was fed lots of New Zealand salmon to built up his strength be for they released him closer to the antartic.

We went to the zoo a lot and saw him on the monitors.   Salem and I wrote on his good bye "card" before his release.

This is a life sized replica of Happy Feet.

At the same time as Happy Feet was at the zoo, thousands upon thousands of the little Pirons (a seabird) were blown so badly by severe gale force winds we were having around the country that they were exhausted and thousands upon thousands of them died.

Their bodies turned up all over Kapiti (where I live), we even had one on our lawn which unfortunately died.  The birds that were alive were taken to the SPCA and other animal shelters to recover, hundreds were also taken to the zoo while Happy Feet was there.

Hundreds were successfully released when they had recovered enough.  But dispite the efforts of very caring and hard working volunteers many just couldn't recover.