WELLINGTON, New Zealand — This is one homesick penguin, stranded on a New Zealand beach 2,000 miles from Antarctica and eating sand it mistook for snow.
Wildlife officials stepped in Friday and moved the ailing young bird to a zoo, where surgery was planned to clear its throat of sticks and sand.
The emperor penguin appeared healthy when it was first spotted Monday on picturesque Peka Peka Beach on New Zealand’s North Island — the country’s first sighting of the bird in the wild in 44 years.
But it grew more lethargic as the week passed, falling weakly into the wet sand at times, and officials feared it would die if they didn’t intervene.
“It’s not going to survive here on the beach if we left it here,” said Peter Simpson, a program manager for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. “There’s too much public pressure. It’s just out in the open.”
The penguin had been eating small sticks of driftwood and sand, which experts said it likely thought was the snow it normally consumes for hydration in Antarctica.
Temperatures hovered around 50 degrees, far higher than the subfreezing temperatures it’s used to. Wellington Zoo staff said the bird was dehydrated and suffering heat exhaustion.
Zoo vet science manager Lisa Argilla said the bird’s throat was flushed with water to try to clear the debris, but it still seemed blocked, so surgery was scheduled for today.
Estimated to be about 10 months old, the penguin might have been searching for squid and krill when it got lost. Experts haven’t determined whether it is male or female.
