One of the things we heard when we were first moving to NZ is that there is often not much news to really keep a paper going each day so a lot of human interest stories become big news. There are always lots of 'fireman saving the cat' type of stories in the news. You might remember by Shrek posting from a couple weeks ago. Shrek now has a rival for the spotlight--- Happy Feet.
Happy Feet is an Emperor penguin that arrived on a beach on the North Island from Antarctica --- about 4,000 km from his home. This is only the 2nd time that an Emperor penguin has arrived in NZ. Happy Feet ended up eating sand off the beach in an attempt to keep cool. This type of penguin cools itself by eating snow and ice normally. The DOC ended up taking him in and he has now been through 3 or 4 rounds of surgery to remove the sand and sticks from his stomach and intestines. It appears that Happy Feet is going to pull through but the big question now is how to get him back to Antarctica? Antarctica is closed to all travel as it is currently 24 hrs of darkness down there and is the height of winter. So, what do you do with a penguin that likes it - 20 below and living on ice burgs until travel season starts in Antarctica?
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