In a first sighting so far north, an emperor penguin appeared on a beach in Australia, thousands of kilometres from its Antarctic home. The malnourished penguin, “way bigger than a seabird,” was spotted on Friday on Ocean Beach in Denmark, Western Australia.

It now remains in the care of a trained and registered local wildlife carer, according to a statement from Australia’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA). “The rehabilitation process is expected to take a few weeks,” a DBCA spokesperson said, as per CNN, adding the wildlife carer is being supported by a DBCA officer. 

Ocean Beach is more than 3,540 km north of Antarctica, suggesting the penguin swam much further to reach Australia. Belinda Cannell, a research fellow at the University of Western Australia, told ABC News the penguin might have followed a current north from Antarctica. “What they tend to do is follow certain currents where they’re going to find lots of different types of food,” Ms Cannell said. “So maybe those currents have just tended to be a little bit further north towards Australia than they normally would.”

Local surfer Aaron Fowler shared his experience with ABC News, recalling the moment he saw the penguin. “It was massive, it was way bigger than a sea bird and we’re like, what is that thing coming out of the water? And it kind of had a tail sticking out like a duck,” Ms Fowler said. “It stood up in the waves and just waddled straight up to us, an emperor penguin, he was probably about a meter high, and he was not shy at all.”

Mr Fowler added, “He tried to do like a slide on his belly, thinking it was snow, I guess, and just face-planted in the sand and stood up and shook all the sand off.”

Emperor penguins are the largest and heaviest of all penguin species, standing up to 45 inches tall and weighing up to 88 pounds. They are only found in Antarctica, where they rely on sea ice for breeding and protection. However, they face growing threats from climate change as rising temperatures put their icy habitats at risk.

A Nature study published in August 2023 revealed that four of the five emperor penguin colonies in the Bellingshausen Sea experienced a “catastrophic breeding failure” in 2022 due to severe loss of sea ice. This marks the first such recorded incident and contributes to predictions that more than 90 per cent of emperor penguin colonies will be “quasi-extinct” by 2100 as global temperatures rise.