Antarctic penguin waddles ashore in New Zealand, 2,000 miles from home

An Antarctic penguin’s misadventure has seen it waddle ashore almost 2,000 miles from home.

The Adélie penguin, which is native to Antarctica, washed up on the coast of New Zealand on Wednesday.

The rare visitor was spotted by resident Harry Singh, just south of Christchurch in Birdlings Flat on the South Island. A video captured by Singh shows the penguin wandering around on the beach.

“I did not notice any physical injury, but it was tired and hungry,” Singh told NBC News via Facebook Messenger on Friday. 

The last sighting of an Adélie penguin was in 1993 and this is only the third time one of the birds has made it to New Zealand’s shores, according to an online encyclopedia of New Zealand birds, which says that one was found dead in 1962 and a live Adélie penguin was reportedly found in 1993.

Although the bird’s sex was not immediately determined, locals fondly named it “Pingu,” after the main character in a clay animated children’s TV series. 

Singh said he and his wife stayed with the exhausted creature for nearly four hours, until staff from Christchurch Penguin Rehabilitation came to its rescue. 

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts

FOR SUBSCRIBERSDecades-old march dispute reignites in Northern Ireland, threatening political crisis

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts

FOR SUBSCRIBERSDecades-old march dispute reignites in Northern Ireland, threatening political crisis

Thomas Stracke of Christchurch Penguin Rehabilitation arrived at the scene with a veterinarian, according to the news website Stuff. He told the site that the penguin was malnourished and severely dehydrated. The team had given Pingu some “fish smoothies” before it was released back to the sea Friday morning, he added. 

“We picked a south-facing bay with not too many visitors and no dogs,” Anita Spencer, senior ranger at the Department of Conservation, told the Australian Associated Press. Rejuvenated and on its feet again, Pingu jumped across boulders and dove into the waves. 

Adélie penguins are commonly found on the coasts of Antarctica. Being excellent swimmers, the species can travel up to 745 miles away from home. The tuxedo-clad birds are known to breed on rocky, ice-free ground.

“We know that juvenile penguins explore quite widely before they settle to breed,” said Philip Trathan, a senior research scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, who is part of a diverse group of marine scientists who research a wide variety of seabirds in the Southern Ocean.

“This bird may have got lost or confused. In the future, as our oceans change, it will be important to understand whether normal behavior also changes,” he added.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Adélie and Emperor penguins are the only two species of penguin that live on sea ice; all other penguins dwell in open water. Adélie penguins are an indicator species used to detect and monitor the effects of environmental change on Antarctic marine ecosystems, according to a New Zealand government website.

Almost the entire cohort of chicks from an Adélie penguin colony in the eastern Antarctic was wiped out by starvation in 2017. 

Researchers said the mass die-off occurred because unusually large amounts of sea ice forced penguin parents to travel farther in search of food for their young. 

By the time they returned, only two out of thousands of chicks had survived.