PEN-CHAN THE PENGUIN IN JAPAN ESCAPES, FOUND ALIVE 28 MILES AWAY 2 WEEKS LATER
Animals raised in captivity are still animals, no matter how much their keepers think they know them. And sometimes, they escape their keepers and go on an adventure, though there are inevitably some tragic stories. Fortunately, the story of Pen-Chan the penguin is one of adventure for the animal and relief for her keepers. She escaped into the ocean at an event from Aichi Prefecture, Japan on August 25th. And the humans who cared for her (and yes, that means in her captivity) were very worried about her as she had never been in the ocean and had no experience swimming in it, or hunting for her own food.
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PEN-CHAN WAS SPOTTED HAPPILY BOBBING IN THE WATER NEAR A BEACH, ALIVE AND WELL
So her keepers feared the worst for about two weeks. Frankly if it was me and I lost a pet for two weeks, I’d still be in mourning with no expectations I’d ever see them again. But amazingly, good news suddenly arrived two weeks later, when someone reported seeing Pen-Chan bobbing and clearly happy in the ocean water near a beach 28 miles away (that’s 45 km for you metric folks). Somehow, this raised in captivity penguin had no trouble whatsoever being alone in the ocean without her human keepers and caretakers.
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PEN-CHAN MUST HAVE HUNTED SUCCESSFULLY, BUT WAS UNDERWEIGHT WHEN THE WAS FOUND AGAIN
One of her keepers was pleasantly surprised after they saw her when she was recaptured. They said, “I thought she would look exhausted, but she was swimming as usual,” and, “it was beyond my surprise…. It’s a miracle.” Apparently, the 6-year-old penguin Pen-Chan must have figured out how to capture and eat fish and crabs along the way of those 28 miles down the coast. But it’s worth noting that when she returned home, it was clear she had lost a little weight along the way. That could have been due to the Typhoon that stymied efforts to find her. It’s just too bad the penguin can’t tell us whether she had just figured out how to hunt enough, or needed to go back to her human minders to survive.
