Everyone knows penguins can’t fly. That didn’t stop a korora from showing up at Wellington International Airport in New Zealand earlier this month. Airport staff rushed to rescue the only bird on the tarmac without aerodynamic wings.
According to Jack Howarth, the airport’s wildlife officer, sensors registered the runway temperature at 122 degrees. In a statement, he said the penguin was in a “less-than-impressed mood” and did not appear very cheerful.
The world’s smallest penguin is not a daytime land dweller. They spend most of their waking hours in the water, snacking on fish, krill, squid and other aquatic delights. They leave their coastal colonies at dawn and return at dusk. The blue penguin, which is also known as a fairy penguin or korora in the Maori language, lives only in New Zealand and Australia.
Wellington Zoo spokesman Zel Lazarevich said the korora reside in nests at nearby Lyall Bay, a popular surf beach, and the airport’s surprise visitor probably got lost on its way home.
Howarth said this was the first penguin to breach the airport’s fortifications. He said it probably squeezed under the fencing. The airport has since penguin-proofed its perimeters.
Airport employees Alex McGregor and Kaleb Woodcock tended to the bird. They swaddled it in a blanket and drove it to safety. The staff at the Nest Te Kohanga, the veterinary hospital that treats the zoo’s residents and native wildlife, took over its care. At intake, Lazarevich said the patient was about 6 weeks old and recently fledged. It was hungry and slightly underweight.
The penguin received a full physical, including X-rays and bloodwork. The vets placed the bird on a weight-gain diet that was heavy on fish. The fledgling has since lost its baby feathers, and the staff is waiting for its adult feathers to become waterproof before they release it. Lazarevich expects that the penguin will return to the wild in a couple of weeks.
The penguin is the newest member of a menagerie that has infiltrated airports, including musk ox, caribou, seals and moose on Alaska airfields, alligators at Orlando’s airport, diamondback terrapins at JFK in New York, wild hares at Milan’s Linate Airport and foxes at England’s Manchester Airport. In Australia, airport employees have to shoo away pesky kangaroos. Last February, an Air New Zealand pilot screeched to a halt after landing at Dunedin Airport to make way for a hedgehog.
correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly said that the fledgling penguin had lost its adult feathers. It had lost its baby feathers. The article has been corrected.
