These copper vests are helping injured penguins heal faster

Amna Nawaz:

Finally, tonight, something to make you smile: an innovative treatment helping injured penguins to get back on their feet.

Stephanie Sy has that story.

Stephanie Sy:

These penguins are wearing actual penguin suits, but they're more about the substance than style. Penguins are facing planetary perils, and these special vests are designed to help.

In Chile, injured penguins are swimming, eating, and shimmying in them. The cocoon of red fabric is woven with healing minerals, copper, which helps prevent bacteria and fungi from growing, and zinc, which encourages new blood vessels to form. Together, they can repair damaged tissue more quickly.

Tomas Pino Damke, Veterinary Doctor, Humboldt Conservation Center (through translator):

The copper suits were born out of the need to manage these wounds when they are in recovery. These patients generally arrive with wounds in very poor condition, where most of the time we have to perform some type of surgical management. We have to do cleaning. We have to do sutures.

And then the challenge was how we treat these wounds in an animal that is wild, that has the ability of great range of neck movement. It could remove stitches. It could disturb the wound. So we had that big problem.

Stephanie Sy:

In the wild, penguins face a number of manmade hazards, but fishing nets can be particularly dangerous. Penguins are considered one of the most threatened groups of seabirds on Earth, facing pressures including climate change, overfishing, and habitat loss.

Most of the penguins at this facility in Chile arrived with bad cuts and lacerations, likely from fishing nets. The vet technicians treat and wrap their wounds, then dress them in their special suits.

The suits are made by the Chilean textile company Kimba that until now made suits for animals of the four-legged variety.

Estefania Guidotti, Head of Textile Marketing, Kimba (through translator): We are working under the hypothesis that this technology could also help penguin recovery. We have tested it in dogs, cats, and mammals, but, in penguins, this is the first time.

Stephanie Sy:

For now, these penguins are taking their recovery one shimmy and one swim at a time. But the goal for so many of the penguins injured by fishing nets is to get them back where they belong, in the wild.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy.