The Little Penguin brought to Melbourne Zoo for urgent treatment was returned home to the St Kilda breakwater recently.

He waddled slowly from the Zoo's travelling container across the sand and into the water, and he bobbed up several times to take a good look around, checking out the familiar sights of his home.

This is a very happy ending for a bird that arrived at the Zoo in danger of losing his foot, because of severe injuries caused when his leg became entangled in a length of stray fishing line.

Earthcare members rescued him in one of their regular visits to monitor the health of the Little Penguin colony that makes its home in St Kilda.

Senior Veterinarian Dr Helen McCracken says that the Penguin was very lucky to be rescued before it was too late, because the injury could have cost the bird its foot, and then its life.

The stray fishing line had wound so tightly around the Penguin's slender leg that it cut right through the skin and into the bone surface.

The entanglement also caused major swelling in the foot tissues, but fortunately the blood flow wasn't completely cut off, so the foot remained alive.

Dr McCracken treated the site of the wound and also prescribed a course of antibiotics to prevent the risk of infection in the bone. The Penguin received the medication hidden inside the fish he was fed several times a day during his stay at the Zoo.

She explains that the black ring still visible around the Penguin's leg may be permanent, a pigmentation change caused by the severe trauma of the entanglement.

She is delighted that the Penguin is now back in its colony: ‘We always aim to return rehabilitated animals back to the wild as soon as we possibly can, before they become too used to humans.'

Dr McCracken says that the severity of the injury to the Little Penguin is a real reminder of the potential dangers of seemingly insignificant bits of rubbish in the marine ecosystem. She urges people enjoying the bay and other waterways to dispose of any rubbish in bins, where it can't harm wildlife.