Or, at least, people don’t know where the famous penguin is after the transmitter attached to him stopped broadcasting his location. No information about his location has been received since 9 September. Here’s hoping Happy Feet is alive and well and hasn’t become some other creature’s dinner!
Happy Feet, an Emperor Penguin, first came to the world’s attention in June when he was found beached in New Zealand.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
They had a brief blurb on the Today show this morning about Happy Feet.
Mentioned if he makes it home there is an embedded chip that will be activated and so he may still be located.
If it’s the type of embedded microchip I’m thinking of, he’d have to be recaptured for it to be read. That would really be something if he showed up in another study a few years from now. Assuming he’s still alive, I do wonder what his chances of making it back are. It probably depends on why he got lost in the first place. Was it a freak weather/current event that took him off course, or does he have a defective internal compass? I know the latter has been shown to be true for some extreme vagrants.
There was actually some speculation that perhaps he had been picked up by a fishing vessel, then released again. I’ve heard similar stories before of South American penguins in the North Pacific.