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Emperor Penguin Released at Sea 20 Days after Waddling Onto Australian Beach

In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)
In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)
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Emperor Penguin Released at Sea 20 Days after Waddling Onto Australian Beach

In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)
In this photo released by Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), a male emperor penguin dubbed Gus, is released back into the ocean off the south coast of Western Australia, Wednesday Nov. 20, 2024. (Miles Brotherson/DBCA via AP)

The only emperor penguin known to have swum from Antarctica to Australia was released at sea 20 days after he waddled ashore on a popular tourist beach, officials said Friday.
The adult male was found on Nov. 1 on Ocean Beach sand dunes in the town of Denmark in temperate southwest Australia — about 3,500 kilometers north of the icy waters off the Antarctic coast, the Western Australia state government said. He was released from a Parks and Wildlife Service boat on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
The boat traveled for several hours from the state’s most southerly city of Albany before the penguin was released into the Southern Ocean, but the government didn't give the distance in its statement.
He had been cared for by registered wildlife caregiver Carol Biddulph, who named him Gus after the first Roman emperor Augustus.
“I really didn’t know whether he was going to make it to begin with because he was so undernourished,” Biddulph said in video recorded before the bird’s release but released by the government on Friday.
“I’ll miss Gus. It’s been an incredible few weeks, something I wouldn’t have missed,” she added.
Biddulph said she had found from caring for other species of lone penguins that mirrors were an important part of their rehabilitation by providing a comforting sense of company.
“He absolutely loves his big mirror and I think that has been crucial in his well-being. They’re social birds and he stands next to the mirror most of the time,” she said.
Gus gained weight in her care, from 21.3 kilograms when he was found to 24.7 kilograms. He stands 1 meter tall. A healthy male emperor penguin can weigh more than 45 kilograms.
The largest penguin species has never been reported in Australia before, University of Western Australia research fellow Belinda Cannell said, though some had reached New Zealand, nearly all of which is further south than Western Australia.
The government said with the Southern Hemisphere summer approaching, it had been time-crucial to return Gus to the ocean where he could thermoregulate.
Emperor penguins have been known to cover up to 1,600 kilometers on foraging journeys that last up to a month, the government said.

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58-year-old Woman Killed in Bear Attack in Poland

22 April 2026, US, Seattle: Juniper, a Coastal Alaskan Brown Bear pictured on Earth Day at the Woodland Park Zoo. Photo: Shane Srogi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
22 April 2026, US, Seattle: Juniper, a Coastal Alaskan Brown Bear pictured on Earth Day at the Woodland Park Zoo. Photo: Shane Srogi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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58-year-old Woman Killed in Bear Attack in Poland

22 April 2026, US, Seattle: Juniper, a Coastal Alaskan Brown Bear pictured on Earth Day at the Woodland Park Zoo. Photo: Shane Srogi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
22 April 2026, US, Seattle: Juniper, a Coastal Alaskan Brown Bear pictured on Earth Day at the Woodland Park Zoo. Photo: Shane Srogi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

A 58-year-old woman was killed by a bear in Southeastern Poland on Thursday, Pawel Giba, press officer for the District State Fire Service Headquarters in Sanok, told AFP.

A report received by the fire department "indicated that in the village of Plonna a woman was allegedly attacked by a bear," he said.

The report was filed by the woman's son.

Three fire squads and police were dispatched to the scene, but "did not proceed with first aid measures due to the extent of the woman's bodily injuries," he added.

Their arrival was delayed by "the difficult terrain and the lack of precise location details".

Upon their arrival, paramedics pronounced the woman dead at the scene.

Currently, "securing activities are underway," and a prosecutor is arriving in the area, according to the spokesman.

Poland has a population of about 100 brown bears, 80 percent of them in Poland's mountainous Bieszczady region, where the latest attack took place, according to Polish government data from 2024.

However, fatal attacks remain extremely rare with the last fatal bear attack in Poland in 2014, according to local media.

Varieties

Mass Poisoning Suspected as 18 Wolves Die in Italian National Park

FILE PHOTO: Ten wolves were released in a wolf wildlife park in Saint Martin Vesubie, southern France, December 16, 2004. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Ten wolves were released in a wolf wildlife park in Saint Martin Vesubie, southern France, December 16, 2004. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
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Mass Poisoning Suspected as 18 Wolves Die in Italian National Park

FILE PHOTO: Ten wolves were released in a wolf wildlife park in Saint Martin Vesubie, southern France, December 16, 2004. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Ten wolves were released in a wolf wildlife park in Saint Martin Vesubie, southern France, December 16, 2004. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo

Italian authorities are investigating the deaths of at least 18 wolves and several other wild animals found in recent days in a national park, in what conservation groups say is one of the worst attacks on wildlife in Italy.

The carcasses were discovered across several locations in and around the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, a mountainous area in the center of the country long regarded as a stronghold for Italy's recovering wolf ⁠population.

The national park's ⁠authorities said the animals were most likely killed by poisoned bait, raising concerns for public safety as well as biodiversity, Reuters reported.

"The scale of what is happening is devastating," it said in a statement, expressing its "deep grief and disbelief".

Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin described the killings as "horrendous", adding that he had ordered ⁠Italy's forestry police to intensify inspections in an effort to identify those responsible.

"The ministry is particularly attentive and sensitive to the protection of a species that is so important for the balance of our ecosystem," he said in a statement.

Italy's protected wolf population has rebounded in recent decades after being driven close to extinction in the 20th century. A 2020-21 census suggested there were around 3,300 wolves nationwide.

However, in some rural areas, farmers complain of attacks on livestock.

Angelo Bonelli, a lawmaker with the ⁠opposition Greens ⁠and Left Alliance party, accused the government of failing to stand up to the hunting lobby, seen as close to right-wing parties in the ruling coalition.

"Swift investigations, tighter controls and exemplary sanctions are needed," he said.

Environment group Legambiente said three foxes and a buzzard had also been found dead in the same region, reinforcing fears of widespread, illegal poisoning.

"This is... an unprecedented attack on protected wildlife," it said in a statement.

Prosecutors in the nearby city of Sulmona have opened an investigation. Authorities have also urged local communities to report suspicious activity as tests continue to determine the exact cause of death.

Varieties

Scientists Trace Latest Interstellar Comet's Home to a Cold, Isolated Corner of the Milky Way

FILE - This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP, File)
FILE - This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP, File)
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Scientists Trace Latest Interstellar Comet's Home to a Cold, Isolated Corner of the Milky Way

FILE - This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP, File)
FILE - This image, provided by NASA, shows the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Nov. 30, 2025, about 178 million miles (286 million kilometers) from Earth. (NASA, ESA, STScI, D. Jewitt (UCLA), M.-T. Hui (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory), J. DePasquale (STScI) via AP, File)

The comet that rambled past us from another star last year likely originated in a cold, isolated corner of the galaxy that had yet to gel into its own solar system, astronomers reported Thursday.

Comet 3I/Atlas is only the third interstellar visitor to be confirmed and quite possibly the oldest. Scientists estimate it could be up to 11 billion years old, more than twice as old as the sun.

A team led by the University of Michigan used the ALMA observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert to examine the comet last fall. The errant but harmless iceball was discovered last summer, giving NASA and the European Space Agency plenty of time to aim multiple space telescopes at it as it zoomed past Mars in October and made its closest approach to Earth in December. It's now well past Jupiter on its way out of our solar system for good, still visible only to the professionals.

In the study, scientists said they detected extremely high amounts of deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, in the comet's water. That suggests that the comet originated in a place considerably colder — before the star of this solar system even formed — than our own cosmic neighborhood, said the University of Michigan's Teresa Paneque-Carreno.

While our sun may have been surrounded by other newborn stars as it was forming, she noted, this comet's home star could have been more of a loner, leading to less heating and colder conditions.

The findings were published in Nature Astronomy.

The comet's precise place of origin is still unknown. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope put the size of its nucleus somewhere between a quarter-mile and 3.5 miles (440 meters and 5.6 kilometers). It's hurtling away at 137,000 mph (220,000 kph).

Linking all these “puzzle pieces together may give an idea to how the planet-forming conditions were at these early times,” the Associated Press quoted Paneque-Carreno as saying in an email.

The first known interstellar object to stray into our celestial backyard — Oumuamua — was discovered by a telescope in Hawaii in 2017. Comet 2I/Borisov followed in 2019, named for the Crimean amateur astronomer who first spotted it.