Dead penguins are mysteriously washing up on the shores of Uruguay

In the past ten days, around 2,000 penguins have been found dead along eastern Uruguay’s coast, baffling scientists.

Beachgoers in eastern Uruguay have been greeted by the alarming sight of dead birds, and no one knows the reason behind the mass deaths.

According to Carmen Leizagoyen, the head of the environment ministry’s department of fauna, the Magellanic penguins were mostly juveniles who died in the Atlantic Ocean and were carried by currents to the country’s shores.

‘This is mortality in the water. Ninety per cent are young specimens that arrive without fat reserves and with empty stomachs,’ she said.

She added that all samples from the penguins had tested negative for bird flu.

Magellanic penguins are a common species in South America and are known to migrate north in the winter in search of warmer waters and food.

‘It is normal for some percentage to die, but not these numbers,’ said Ms Leizagoyen, recalling that a similar die-off occurred last year in Brazil, for undetermined reasons.

Hector Caymaris, director of the Laguna de Rocha protected area, told AFP that he counted more than 500 dead penguins along six miles of Atlantic coast.