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El Niño is wreaking havoc not only on humans and the climate, but also animals. From ferocious tigers to little waddling penguins, everyone has been bearing their souls with the heightening heat that remains undefeated and overpowering. Amidst this, researchers in Chile have designed an unlikely new garment for injured penguins, snug red vests threaded with copper and zinc that they hope will help the aquatic birds heal faster, according to a report by US News & World Report.In the past, veterinarians have tried the same with injured dogs and cats and found success. Now, they are trying out the technology on Humboldt penguins in Chile, home to the largest concentration of the vulnerable species. “For years, vests with microfibers containing elements like copper and zinc have been tested on pets, particularly dogs and cats, and have greatly helped in the recovery of skin wounds,” said Ignacio Idalsoaga, director of the Buin Zoo, a wildlife park on the outskirts of Chile’s capital, Santiago, where researchers took measurements of penguins to develop the first bodysuits.“We began to wonder — why can’t this be used on penguins?” he told The Associated Press from the zoo on Wednesday.
Saving a declining population
The El Nino pattern brings in unusually warm waters to parts of the Pacific Ocean, making the cold-water fish that they rely on harder to find.
The experiment comes as Chile’s Humboldt penguin population is declining rapidly. Chilean and international researchers surveying the country’s major breeding colonies in 2024 and 2025 found a 63% drop in active nests compared to the same sites three years earlier. Chile, the world’s top copper producer, is home to 80% of the world’s remaining Humboldt penguins, and scientists at the Universidad de Concepción estimate that their numbers have dwindled to fewer than 20,000 from around 45,000 in the late 1990s.Typically, the birds face mounting threats from entanglement in fishing nets, plastic pollution, disease outbreaks and competition with fisheries for food. Now, they also find themselves in the crosshairs with one of the world’s most disruptive weather patterns, El Niño. The pattern brings in unusually warm waters to parts of the Pacific Ocean, making the cold-water fish that they rely on harder to find. This forces the penguin parents to travel farther for food and leave their nests behind.“Especially now, with all the problems caused by El Niño, we’re likely to see many abandoned chicks in the coming weeks, with injuries they suffer in the environment,” Idalsoaga said.Wildlife clinics across Chile have been receiving distressed penguins stranded along the coast, some cut by fishing nets or boat propellers, others weakened by a lack of food, shared Tomas Pino, a veterinarian who runs Conservacion Humboldt, a nonprofit that rehabilitates injured marine animals in the country’s north.
Treating injuries faster
When they get injured, penguins often twist their long necks to peck at the gashes and often end up pulling out their own stitches. The vests made by the researchers prevent them from doing that while putting copper to work as a salve. Copper and zinc woven into the fabric help inhibit the growth of bacteria, fungi and mites. Moreover, zinc also stimulated the formation of new blood vessels, helping damaged tissue heal faster.The suit was created by adapting copper bodysuits previously used on four-legged animals for birds, through a collaboration between the Humboldt Conservation Centre, a non-profit, the Catholic University of the North and textile innovation company Kimba Vet.The suits were tested on five penguins at the Humboldt Conservation Centre in Coquimbo, which rehabilitates two species of penguins on Chile’s central rocky coast: Humboldt and Magellanic penguins. Four of the birds had wounds believed to have been caused by human activity, most likely entanglement in fishing nets.“We’ve seen that the penguins tolerate it quite well,” Pino said. “We noticed that from one day to the next, the wounds were in better condition with the vest.”
