Recently, the weekly “Good News newsletter” I receive included a story about a penguin who’d lost its way. This penguin was native to New Zealand, but wound up some 1500 miles away, in Australia.

A brave little penguin made its way back into the water after a 1,500-mile journey that left it struggling and underweight. [T]he Melbourne Zoo released the Fiordland penguin at Summerland Beach…off the coast of Melbourne last month after the flightless bird spent all summer at their facilities recuperating from its travels.

That seems nice enough. This unnamed penguin wound up very far from home, and the zoo helped it recuperate, then released it back into the wild.

“It’s a tough life out there in the ocean, but we’re hopeful this penguin will find its way back to New Zealand and eventually breed,” said the zoo’s head of veterinary services, Dr. Michael Lynch. “We’ve given it every chance to do so.”

I really don’t think they have. It was so tiring for this creature to make it to Australia that it needed months to recover. If the hope is for this penguin to have a chance to breed back in its native land, perhaps a ride back to New Zealand would be in order.