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.
Veterinarians have found success in the past using such suits to treat injured dogs and cats. Now they're trying out the technology on Humboldt penguins in Chile, home to the largest concentration of the vulnerable species.
"For years, vests with microfibres 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 said in an interview at the zoo recently.
The experiment comes as Chile's Humboldt penguin population declines sharply. 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.
The birds face mounting threats, including entanglement in fishing nets, plastic pollution, disease outbreaks and competition with fisheries for food.
Now Humboldt penguins also find themselves in the cross hairs of one of the world’s most disruptive weather patterns, El Nino, which brings unusually warm waters to parts of the Pacific Ocean.
This results in making the cold-water fish that they rely on harder to find. Hunger forces penguin parents to travel farther afield for food and leave their nests behind.
"Especially now, with all the problems caused by El Nino, 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 receive distressed penguins stranded along Chile's coast, some cut by fishing nets or boat propellers, others weakened by a lack of food, said Tomás Pino, a veterinarian who runs Conservación Humboldt, a non-profit organisation that rehabilitates injured marine animals in the country's north.
Treating those injuries can be tricky. Penguins often twist their long necks to peck at gashes and pull out their own stitches, Pino said.
The vests prevent them from doing that while putting copper – of which Chile is the world’s top producer – to work as a salve. Copper and zinc woven into the fabric inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi.
Zinc also stimulates the formation of new blood vessels, helping damaged tissue heal faster.
"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." – AP
