Traveling Penguin lands in Peru, 3,000 miles from home

Bird swam thousands of miles from frigid waters of southern Chile.  A "disoriented" Magellanic penguin swam ashore on Peru’s coast, some 3,100 miles north of his home in the frigid waters of southern Chile.

The penguin got lost while looking for food, Peru’s National Resource Institute was quoted as saying in El Comercio newspaper Saturday.

"It seems he was disoriented and got lost in the sea due to the different ocean currents," said Wilder Canales, who heads the National Paracas Reserve in southern Peru. "In his endless search for food, he casually climbed up on our shores, something that has never happened before."

Television images showed scientists at the nature reserve treating an injury to the penguin’s right wing that was apparently caused by a fishing net.

Peruvian authorities are trying to coordinate with their Chilean counterparts to return the penguin to its home waters.