Adorable Footage Shows a Penguin Getting Emotional While Separating From His Rescuer
A penguin's silent emotions when his petting parent set him free on an ocean’s shoreline went viral recently. The bird kept looking back at the human. She was not his parent after all, just a guardian who had rescued him, healed him, loved him. Disheartened, he waddled towards the edge of the ocean. Turbulent waters roared at him, and he was frightened. The scene appears to come straight out of a Pixar drama, but sadly, it’s realer than real. The footage, posted on X by @TheFigen_ illustrates how these speechless creatures can still melt hearts with their big emotions.
According to Project WellBird - Kaikōura Wildlife Hospital, nonprofit organization based in New Zealand, likely the original publisher of this video, this was a blue penguin. The blue penguin was discovered by a local who noticed that he was suffering from a significant head wound and severe exhaustion after getting entangled in the human-spilled plastic netting. Seeing him in such a poor health condition, the penguin was brought into the caretaking of the wildlife hospital where he was nursed, fed, and petted by the doctors until fully healed.
For wildlife rehabilitators, letting go of the penguin was just another successful project. But for the penguin himself, the moment was shattering, as the X user put it in the caption, “Some abandonments are giving up, maybe he doesn't want to give up on her.” The footage shows a woman gently transferring the penguin from her arms onto the shoreline. With towering white waves crashing and rolling in the background, the penguin seems reluctant and afraid to leave her. He turns back and takes a few moments looking at her.
He turns back to look at the ocean, then turns his head back towards the woman again. At this moment perhaps, the brutal reality of life strikes him. He is all alone. After moving a few steps ahead, he stops, and looks back again, with a last ounce of hope. He looks towards the ocean, then looks back, looks towards the ocean, then looks back. Interrupting the conflict spawning in his head, a giant wave crashes against his body, as if calling him to jump into his natural habitat. He takes the call, jumps on the wave, and waddles away.
Within a few seconds, he is just a wiggling black dot dissolving into the monstrous waves of the ocean. As he clings to the waves, they toss and flip him back and forth like a dead leaf in a storm. A few seconds more, and the ocean has swallowed him away. Nothing remained except for the agitated waves that battered and pounded the shoreline. The tearjerker episode evoked a flurry of dramatic comments, studded with crying emojis from the viewers.
Many viewers couldn’t bear to see the little guy going through the feelings of abandonment. “This feels almost like releasing a 3-year-old kid into a forest at night; go find your people, somewhere out there, and may god have mercy on you,” commented @ZealousShout. @atamanoyare complained, “She couldn’t find a less turbulent shore for the little guy?” @damonstrong echoed, “He'll have to look for his own food now.” Others became scared thinking that the penguin could have been eaten by a seal or a shark.
Watch the video here.
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