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One way to get a penguin to fly

A C-130 rolled down the strip with 399 penguins on a one-way trip in Brazil last Friday.

The mission: To save the Magellanic penguins that had been stranded 1,550 miles north of their typical feeding grounds and were starving on the beaches of near Salvador.

“They showed up emaciated and exhausted,” said Chris Cutter of The International Fund for Animal Welfare. “They weren’t going to Carnival.”

IFAW, in cooperation with the Brazilian government, loaded the birds into crates and flew them on a Brazilian air force C-130 to Pelotas, which is on the coast just shy of the border with Argentina.

Once led to the frigid water at Pelotas, the birds waddled away.

Cutter said no one is sure how the penguins ended up so far north, but he said clues point to warmer water currents confusing the penguins.

This isn’t the first time IFAW has worked with an air force to rescue animals.

The group has airlifted penguins with the Argentine air force and worked with the U.S. Air Force to airlift dogs from the Southeast ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.