The lost penguins of the Brazilian coast.

• Author: Balaguer, Alejandro
• Position: !Ojo!

THE PATAGONIAN WIND roars and sweeps through the Tierra del Fuego announcing the arrival of the raw and merciless winter at the southern tip of the continent. On the rocky shores of the Straits of Magellan, a large colony of Magellan penguins is scurrying to begin its yearly migration. These likeable birds in their signature "coat and tails" are braving the whipping gales of wind and preparing to follow the sea current northward in search of better climate and more abundant food.

Most of them will achieve their objective and return to this same area to continue their reproductive cycle. Others will not be so fortunate and will be caught by fishing lines or by predators like killer whales. Still others are facing a new danger that will carry them far away to tropical coasts where they will die unless they receive help from human beings. This is the case of hundreds of Magellan penguins who have stumbled ashore in recent years on the beaches of Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro. They arrive exhausted, some already dead. Some have ended up even farther away in the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil.

In 2005, the arrival of more than 200 disoriented penguins surprised Rio natives who quickly arranged for them to be taken to the Niteroi Zoo. The continued arrival of the penguins in the following years has caused controversy and consternation in the scientific world, adding to fears that this could be another consequence of our current climate crisis. Zoo director Giselda Candiotta, who took in the lost penguins last year, says that most of the rescued animals were young. The inexperienced young penguins may be straying away from the cold ocean currents in search of fish and then be unable to find their way back to these underwater routes that would take them home.

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Hector Guzman, a marine biologist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), says that the phenomenon is extremely interesting but not new. "[What is happening with the penguins] is apparently associated with...