Freedom for Miss Simpson, the penguin found 2,000km from home

A Snares penguin from islands south of New Zealand is found wounded on a Tasmanian beach. Nine months' nursing later, she tastes the open sea again

Just before dawn on a still morning in autumn a crowd of people gathers on a beach in southern Tasmania. They watch in tense silence as a small animal shuffles across the sand. This animal, a penguin, has been the focus of nine months of care, liaison and cooperation to get to this moment - she is being released and sent back out into her world. I am privileged to be included in the farewell crew, and share the jubilation and anxiety of the people around me, all of us hoping that she will remember her path home.