Gummi Penguins

Today I guess I'm enjoying winter. In honor of the snow...Gummi Penguins!

By Haribo, of course. Licorice, unfortunately. 

I read a great book last week - The Great Penguin Rescue, by Dyan deNapoli.  It's about the rescue of 40,000 penguins after a major oil spill off Cape Town.  I definitely recommend it, especially if you like penguins... though parts are sad if you like penguins. However, it's overall a happy ending of the largest animal rescue ever, and one of the most successful. In addition to dealing with thousands of penguins covered in oil, they also had to figure out what to do with the penguins who so far were clean, but whose islands were about to be hit by the oil slick. The brilliant solution was to round up those penguins and transport them by truck to another beach 16 hours away. They knew penguins usually return home to their breeding grounds, so the gamble was that they could clean up the beaches by the time the penguins swam home. It worked, and thousands more were saved (and without having to rely on already stretched resources to feed and house them).