Injured “little penguins”—the world’s smallest species of penguin—have been stolen in the dead of night from their home on Granite Island in Southern Australia.
[etssp 290]
While the uninhabited island is quiet in the middle of the night, thieves have been climbing over the six-foot concrete fences to take little penguins (Eudyptula minor) from the Granite Island Penguin Center—an enclosure run by volunteers to care for injured penguins.
The center’s coordinator, Dorothy Longden, said that three penguins have been stolen from the already dwindling penguin population on the island. Just a decade ago, the island had 2,000 penguins, but now it only has 146 penguins, as of last August’s census.
“Lately we’ve had a lot of people climbing over the wall and taking penguins out of the area, “ said Longden. “These penguins will not survive in the wild, and you cannot keep a penguin as a pet, because they need other penguins and they live in a colony.”
Longden, who has worked at the center for seven years, said that the staff members at the center have no idea what the thieves do with the penguins, but they presume the birds are either sold, released to the wild, or kept as pets. At only 12 to 13 inches tall, they are particularly easy for humans to carry away, says Longden.
