Science
How Did This Penguin End Up on a Beach in Australia?
“This is the furthest north I’ve heard of an emperor penguin,” an expert said.
It was a day as Australian as you can get: Sun, waves and surfing at the beach.
And then something distinctly un-Australian turned up.
Aaron Fowler and a friend were heading back to the parking lot after a day in the waves. “We saw something coming out of the water,” Mr. Fowler, a 37-year-old drywall repairman, said. “We thought it was a seabird, but then we thought, ‘Oh, that’s way too big,’ and it had a big, long neck and a tail sticking out like a duck.
“It stood up in the water and waddled straight up to us and just started cleaning itself.”
Aaron FowlerCreditCredit…Aaron Fowler
Standing there on the beach in the small town of Denmark in Western Australia on Friday afternoon was a male emperor penguin, about 2,100 miles from where one might expect to find it, in Antarctica.
Mr. Fowler had seen plenty of dolphins and other creatures in the waves, including one leopard seal, which is also native to Antarctica, but he never expected a penguin. “We were in shock,” he said.
Even someone with years of experience studying penguins was surprised at the sighting. “That crazy young penguin,” said Dee Boersma, a professor of biology at the University of Washington and author of “Penguins: Natural History and Conservation.”
