From today's Ketchikan Daily News:

> ??Sure enough there was the little guy wobbling around on deck. Or
> actually it was kind of cowering over by the railing. I wouldn?t have
> believed it if I hadn?t seen it with my own eyes.??
> The crew began trying to figure out how to get the penguin back in the
> water.
> ??Anytime we got real close to it, it just wanted to snap at us to
> protect itself,?? he said.
> After about a half hour, the penguin calmed down enough so that one of
> the crew could pick it up and throw it overboard. The penguin surfaced
> about 50 yards away.
> Dee Boersma, a professor of zoology at the University of Washington,
> talked to the fishermen herself later in the month. She said it?s
> possible the penguin came to Alaska waters by boat from Peru or Chile,
> where the birds reside.
> ??It seems highly unlikely they swam up here,?? Boersma said. ??They
> get moved. It?s quite possible I suppose that it got on somebody?s boat
> and they brought it up from off the coast.??
> Three penguins were also sighted off Vancouver Island in 1978. Since
> the birds live to an average of 30 years, it is possible they are the
> same penguins, said Boersma. There also have been lots of reports of
> penguins in British Columbia.
> A penguin could survive in southeast Alaska for some time as long as it
> stays in the water, she said.
> ??If you?ve got a lot of herring around there, he?ll probably do just
> fine until he tries to go to nest on one of those islands because one
> of the problems for these guys will be predators. And so, bears ? they
> would be happy to eat any penguins that you have around.??

Go to http://www.ketchikandailynews.com/news2.shtml#1028190865 for the
whole story.


Sharron Huffman
HERRING COVE ORIGINALS STUDIO & GALLERY
Ketchikan, Alaska
http://www.sharronhuffman.com