Device from Hawke's Bay tracks Happy Feet

The travels of emperor penguin Happy Feet can be followed online thanks to the Havelock North-based company Sirtrack, which fitted him with a tracking device.

Sirtrack, which has 25 years of experience in wildlife tracking, designed and built the satellite transmitter, and created a website so people can watch the penquin's travels to Antarctica.

Happy Feet stole hearts after being washed up on the Kapiti Coast in June.

He has spent two months recuperating at Wellington Zoo, and departed for home on the Niwa vessel, Tangaroa, earlier this week.

In about three days he will be dropped in the ocean to fend for himself, while the ship continues on its research mission to the Campbell Islands.

The KiwiSat 202 tracking device was fitted to Happy Feet's feathers using glue and tape

It won't affect his ability to swim and is designed to fall off when the bird moults in March or April. The device weighs less than 1 per cent of Happy Feet's body weight and is about the size of a Matchbox car.

Sirtrack CEO Mike Kelly said the tracker will send signals from Happy Feet via satellite for about three hours twice a day.

The data will be limited depending on where the ship is, until the bird is released into the wild.

The company has been fitting tracking devices on to marine animals for 15 years "so the technology is quite refined", Mr Kelly said.

"It is a unique situation to monitor a penguin in an unfamiliar habitat this far north, and a great opportunity for New Zealand and the world to look at what this animal is doing."

Follow Happy Feet's travels on www.nzemperor.com and twitter@NZEmperor.