When placed in water, Morgan uses his beak and flippers to quickly haul himself out
When placed in water, Morgan uses his beak and flippers to quickly haul himself outMorgan the penguin is "really unusual". He simply doesn't want to swim. The white-flippered penguin is about 16-years-old and was found skinny and lost at Flea Bay, Banks Peninsula, about three weeks ago. Now in quarantine at Christchurch's International Antarctic Centre, Morgan is the first penguin staff have ever seen that refuses to swim. When placed in water Morgan uses his beak and flippers to quickly haul himself out. "This is a really unusual penguin. It is the first time we have ever seen a mature penguin that has come in from the wild and simply refuses to swim," centre director Richard Benton said.
Strange lil fella: Morgan has a unique habit of flipping his water bowl
upside down and standing on it. Morgan also has a unique habit of flipping his water bowl upside down and standing on it, Benton said. Penguin keeper Mallorie Hackett said Morgan was "full of character" and was "definitely a ladies man". In 25 days' time he will be introduced to the centre's main penguin encounter, where Hackett hopes he will befriend Parnia, a single female white-flippered penguin. The tiny bird was found starving and malnourished at a penguin colony on the property of conservationist Shirleen Helps, where the population has fallen dramatically this year as changing weather patterns have reduced fish stocks.
"A lot of chicks have starved to death before we could actually help them, then the adults started getting into trouble and started ending up too skinny to get the through the moult and this one was one of those ... we've probably lost 80-90 per cent of the chicks this year," said Helps. New Zealand's Department of Conservation says the culprit is La Nina, a weather pattern characterised by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.
