Oil-Covered Penguins Cleaned Up, Returned to the Ocean

By Carolyn Johnson

Valeria Ruoppolo, a veterinarian with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, joined a crowd of applauding onlookers this week as 49 freshly cleaned Magellanic penguins waddled happily back into the ocean. The penguins were among a group of 190 penguins that were rescued in May from an oil spill off Patagonia, Argentina, in May. Another 50 penguins will be released in the first week of August, with the remainder being returned to the sea in coming weeks.

About 224 penguins were found alive in a remote Santa Cruz province after the spill, but some later died. The 190 surviving penguins were airlifted to Fundacion Mundo Marino, a marine facility in San Clemente del Tuvu. At the facility, about 185 miles southeast of Buenos Aires, the migratory penguins were washed repeatedly until their bodies were completely clean of the sticky goo, and then their feathers were realigned to regain the waterproofing required to guard against the chill of the South Atlantic ocean.

The cause of the oil spill that crippled the penguins was never identified, although the Coast Guard sent overflights to inspect the area. Ruoppolo said that the source could have been an offshore ship dumping oil and other pollutants, and because penguins are wide-ranging migratory seabirds, their routes make them vulnerable to oil spills. "Having all these ships throwing their oil in the water ... it causes a big problem," Ruoppolo said, adding hundreds of penguins were found dead "but the real number [of penguins killed] we'll never really know."

Authorities were first alerted to penguins coated in black oil showing up on the rocky costs off South America’s southern Straits of Magellan in early may. At first, 70 dead Magellanic penguins were found at the Cabo Virgenes nature reserve on the Straits, where about 400,000 penguins live during the warmer months of the year. Eventually over 220 penguins were found still alive, although coated with thick oil. Government experts from Santa Cruz and veterinarians from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, along with teams from the Fundacion Mundo Marino, worked together to rescue the birds.

Ruoppolo said that rehabilitation efforts at the initial rescue site, in frigid Canta Cruz province, were hampered by the cold. So rescuers decided to airlift the birds to San Clemente del Tuvu because of its warmer weather, where the recovery process would go more quickly. To help the birds regain their natural waterproofing, they were repeatedly washed and dried so their feathers would realign properly. "To regain their waterproofing, they need to get wet and dry off many times. This is how they align their feathers to the normal position, so the feathers interlock together and form a barrier against the cold water," Ruoppolo said.

About 50 tourists cheered as two pickup trucks approached the shore carrying the cages of penguins. Some of the tourists had waited for hours on the wind-swept beach close to the outlet of Argentina’s River Plate. The cages were opened and the penguins, each tagged with an identifying band, were released all together. They quickly raced past the tourists and plunged into the ocean. Someone shouted, "Beautiful! Beautiful!" as video cameras recorded the birds swimming away, until they vanished in the distance.