We’re not ruling out that the incident in Japan that made national media headlines this week won’t be turned into a movie. If animals have a respected and prominent place in the Asian country’s culture, the story of a penguin who disappeared in captivity two weeks ago has the potential to become something huge. It’s the story of Pen-chan, the penguin who escaped his fate, or so we’d like to believe.

Escape It all begins on August 25th on Himaka Island in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. There, a captive female Cape penguin, Pen-chan, disappears shortly before an event for tourists where she was to be one of the protagonists.

The seemingly rebellious hero had never swam in the open sea in his life. In fact, given his life in captivity, he had never had any contact with the “outside.” If that was the case, thought Ryosuke Imai, his caretaker at the Gekidan Penters headquarters, it was reasonable to assume that Pen-chan would not survive for long.

Initial investigations. Initial efforts to locate the penguin were fruitless. No one had ever found the creature in its home. A powerful typhoon that brought record rainfall across Japan disrupted the search for days.

Soon, one of the center’s staff stumbles upon a clue. Apparently, the penguin had managed to escape after being netted into shallow water for visitors. According to the media, Pen-chan mustered up the courage and swam through a gap in the enclosure. The news that confirmed that he had indeed escaped turned to gloom.

In these climate conditions, Pen-chan wouldn’t be able to survive for more than a week.

The problem of living in prison. African penguins like Pen-chan typically swim several kilometers a day. However, given that he was raised in captivity, his endurance was much lower and his muscle mass was nowhere near what was needed to survive in the wild.

A miracle. And as if it were a tabletop movie, something unexpected happened on September 8th. Two weeks after the brave Pen-chan defied nature to seek freedom (yes, we definitely believe in this theory), the center received a call. Surprisingly, the creature was seen happily swimming in the water on a beach at least 45 kilometers away.

“I thought it would look tired but it was swimming as usual,” Imai told the media after the animal was recaptured. “It was more than a surprise… It’s a miracle. I think it got there by stopping a few times to rest but it’s still amazing. “It’s lost a bit of weight but it’s doing very well,” he said.

Mission impossible. The six-year-old penguin has returned to captivity at Gekidan Penters after the most exciting adventure of his life, during which he spent two weeks completely free. When asked how the penguin was able to survive, the center explained that everything was a hypothesis, although keepers indicated that he most likely caught fish and crabs to survive, “we were surprised by the penguin’s physical capacity and adaptability.”

But we do know that Typhoon Shanshan, which hit the region as it began its epic escape, produced powerful winds and torrential rains, knocking out power and forcing millions of people to evacuate. Along the way, they killed six people like Pen-chan. How did a lost little penguin, born and raised in captivity, survive all of this?

Savior typhoon. Ironically, considering that their biggest enemies in the ocean are ship collisions and the possibility of getting caught in fishing nets, the real “miracle” in this whole story was the typhoon, as the ships were out of action.

Moreover, it would have been normal for him to die from heat. Again, the “miraculous” typhoon and the storm that came with it cooled everything down and provided the creature with fresh water to drink. All these factors must have made Pen-chan’s epic a possible mission.

Happy ending? However, while the center talks about a “miracle” and we are filled with joy after learning that Pen-chan is safe and sound, it is difficult to give this story a positive ending. In fact, we have no idea whether the creature is happy with its return to captivity.

Perhaps he will surprise us with a similar story that confirms what his true intentions are.

Image | YouTube

In Xataka | Three times bigger than the largest modern penguins: This was New Zealand’s ‘mega penguin’

At Xataka | “It’s not a penguin”: Real penguins are not the animals we often believe them to be and have actually been extinct for two centuries.