Three months ago, a young penguin was found on a beach in New Zealand, 5,000 kilometers from its home. The penguin was thin, sick and lost, so he was taken to Wellington Zoo.

The vets at the zoo called him "Happy Feet", after the movie about a happy baby penguin who liked to dance. But this lost penguin was far from happy. His stomach was full of sand, which made him very sick. The vets were sure that Happy Feet ate the sand because he thought it was snow. So they cleaned out his stomach and put him in a special air-conditioned room full of ice and snow to keep him cold. They fed him a lot of fish, and soon the lost penguin was fat and much happier.

Three months later, Happy Feet was healthy and ready to leave the ice room. But the vets didn't know what to do with him. They had two choices: they could leave him in the zoo where he would be safe or they could send him back into the wild. One vet explained that because penguins are seabirds, it was best to put Happy Feet back into the ocean and let him swim home. But first they glued a GPS to his feathers so they could track him.

Yesterday, Happy Feet started out on his journey home. A ship took him out to the ocean where other young penguins were swimming. Then he went down a special slide into the water.

A vet who was on the ship said, "He swam away, not caring about us anymore. And that's a good thing."