Penguins catch flight home

SAO PAULO, Brazil – More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil’s equatorial beaches were flown south on an air force jet and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, environmentalists said Monday.

Onlookers cheered as the young Magellanic penguins waddled into the ocean at a beach in southern Brazil, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a statement. It called the penguin release the largest ever in South America.

The penguins were among nearly 1,000 that have washed up on Brazil’s northeastern coast in recent months, said group spokesman Chris Cutter. About 20 percent of the penguins died and the rest were not healthy enough send back.

The penguins, which had been kept at an animal rehabilitation center in the northeastern city of Salvador, were flown on an air force plane to southern Brazil and set free on Saturday.

Experts hope a small group of older penguins released along with the young ones will help guide them south to the Patagonia.

Magellanic penguins breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile and migrate north as far as southwest Brazil between March and September.

Environmentalists say it is not known why the penguins were stranded so far north. Some have suggested the birds could have been carried beyond their usual range by a flow of warm water.