Pilfered Penguin's Parents Have Chick

The penguins who had their 3-month-old chick stolen just before Christmas have hatched another egg at a zoo in southern England.

Penguins Kyala and Oscar had looked up and down for their missing chick named Toga when he disappeared from the Amazon World Zoo on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast and rewards were posted for his safe return.

Dependant on his parents for predigested food, the lost penguin was too young to live on his own. It is presumed he did not survive his apparent kidnapping.

But come the New Year, the parents began beak tapping and twig gathering, sure signs of courtship. One stopped coming out of the cave to feed, and a new egg was spotted mid-January. The couple took turns keeping the egg warm and on Valentine's Day their new penguin chick was hatched.

Kyala and Oscar's new chick has yet to be named and its sex was not yet known. The parents will only let the new chick out of their sight for a few minutes, and only if it's in the arms of their keeper, Lisa Simkins.

"It's growing so quickly," Amazon World Zoo manager Kath Bright told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "We can hardly believe it."

Bright said that keeping the chick warm and feeding it regurgitated fish, three times the amount they would actually consume themselves per day, keeps the parents very busy.

Proud papa Oscar is understandably overprotective, Bright said.

"Lisa is the only person that's actually handled the baby and is the only one that goes anywhere near them," she said.

Given the publicity that surrounded the kidnapping of it's sibling in December, the birth of the new chick has generated worldwide interest.

"With Toga's disappearance, we had e-mails from all over the world, from Peru, America and Canada have been especially supportive," Bright said "And obviously, we want to let everybody know that there's a silver lining to this cloud. So, it's brilliant news. Everybody is just … it's a nice ending to this sad story."

Zookeepers at the time said they believed someone may have stolen Toga him to give as a Christmas gift, inspired by the popular film "March of the Penguins."

There was no sign of forced entry to the pen, but a thief would have been able to climb into the compound and carry the brown-and-white bird away.

Despite scores of reported sightings and an on-air confession from a man who called a television station to admit to stealing the bird, Toga was not been found.

Zoo officials have installed closed circuit television cameras and motion sensors to make sure that Toga's sibling remains safely with his parents, who are a rare breed of penguin found on the southern coast of Africa.

"We would like to know what happened, and one scenario is that Toga is no longer with us," Bright said. "The opposition is that somebody who knew what they were doing actually stole him for a private collector. In that case, there's a possibility that Toga is still alive somewhere. We prefer to think of that option, but to be honest, we may never know. We've had to increase our security here so much, which is such a shame that people abuse the trust and health of these animals in such a way."