By Emma Jolliff
Happy Feet the emperor penguin was last seen bobbing in the Southern Ocean after being encouraged down a hydro slide off the Tangaroa, just north of Campbell Island.
Wellington Zoo’s manager of Vetinary Science, Lisa Argilla, says she and the NIWA crew were hopinh he would make a dive for it, “but he kind of looked a bit comfortable watching us staring at him”.
Ms Argilla says it took some encouragement to even get him out of the box he has spent six days in on the Tangaroa. She had to give him a few nudges in the right direction.
“We opened the door so he could have a look. He poked his head out and was a bit curious then he chose to go stand at the back of his crate.”
Weather conditions were better than yesterday's 12 metre swells and were the best they were going to get in the Southern Ocean at this time of year.
Ms Argilla says releasing animals back into the wild is the best part of her job, and today's release went, well, swimmingly.
“He just looked at us quickly and then took off, we didn't see any more of him. He just dove under the water and we haven't seen him since.”
But there is more; Happy feet is wearing a GPS device that should stay on until he moults next season.
It will transmit signals twice a day for three hours and his progress can be tracked on website www.ourfarsouth.org
Ms Argilla says as a juvenile he will stay in the sub Antarctic region with other emperor penguins for a year, heading to Antarctica next year to breed.
For now at least, it's a happy ending.
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