A little penguin escaped from the Avifauna bird park in Alphen aan den Rijn last week. The seabird is not back yet. It is a young male and he was seen in the water near Nieuwveen yesterday. This morning the bird park received a phone call from Zwammerdam.
“That is quite a distance,” says a spokeswoman for Avifauna Broadcaster West. But she is not surprised. “He can also run and swim insanely.”
The so-called Humboldt penguin is one of thirty seabirds that live in Avifauna. How and when the creature escaped is not entirely clear. “He has already gone for a walk in the park a few times. Now he has apparently come out. That is of course a very strange sight,” said the spokeswoman. “We also find it very impressive.”
You don’t believe what’s swimming by
The bird park is inundated with phone calls. This mainly concerns people who are on the road with a boat and do not immediately believe what they see swimming by. Following the latest report in Zwammerdam, Avifauna employees searched for the escaped penguin for some time this morning, but they returned empty-handed. “He will not just let himself be caught”, the spokeswoman expects.
Penguins can reach speeds of up to 35 kilometers per hour, according to the bird park. Anyone who sees the speed demon is requested to contact Avifauna. “We think he will hold out,” said the spokeswoman. The animal is not bothered by the heat, the Humboldt penguin also occurs naturally in warm areas, such as off the coast of Chile and Peru.
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