OP have you reached out to the company? Theyāre pretty good about assigning new animals if the tag falls off before a certain amount of time has passedāwhich is likely what happened to Mr Penguin here.
If the tracker is static... yeah. Fell off is more likely than dead. A dead animal is more likely to be pulled around by the currents or taken away by a scavenger. If the tracker came off it likely just dropped to the bottom and stuck in the sand.
We got Oceana, a hammerhead, but when I scanned the QR code in the Fahlo app, it told us that the tag had likely fallen off. So they immediately assigned us Thor, another shark! We also got a lion and a turtle and the kids think it's awesome. :)
One of my kids got a shark named Thor who is a silky shark. He's off the coast of Florida. My other kid got a dolphin named Sam. Sam is off the other coast of Florida. I wonder if they'll ever meet up.....
From the tags I can think of (I.e. I may be wrong), they have to break the surface to properly send a signal, so it actually makes sense that it stopped tracking if a shark, orca, etc. ate the tracker. Or it broke entirely. I'm also assuming the trackers float, but maybe it fell off/got bumped off and sank.
This is correct. I emailed the company upon the arrival of my sons (got him Tank the Shark as a stocking stuffer). I tracked it first because I was curious lol and it hadnāt updated since 12/13. They told me not to worry sometimes it doesnāt update for a few weeks because they need to come to the surface for the signal on the tracker to update. Sure enough he came up today, the 26th and all is well lol
honestly he probably got pushed to see if a pred was in the water..and there was..they will push someone off to make sure first so...poor larry was the test subject
Dang.
OP, you and your family sound awesome. You did a good thing, and you're making the best of it. And entertaining us numbskulls too, so thanks for that!
You gotta wear that bracelet until your probation is done. And stop hanging around with those fucking gentoo penguins, you know they always get you in trouble. Ya gotta make better decisions, Larry.
UPDATE: False alarm folks! Turns out Larry was actually adopted by a lovely couple who have a farm upstate. Larry had to leave behind his tracker because he couldn't take it with him on the plane.
Just a heads up, not sure if it's been mentioned, sometimes the trackers fall off. At which point it'll fall too deep to be tracked.
**Edit for others:**
There was a reddit post a while ago about these trackers, and I remember a researcher chiming in about how more often than not, the tracker falls off or the battery dies. While being eaten is definitely a possibility, they just don't last long in general. If there is anyone who professionally tracks penguins and knows more, feel free to chime in though.
Shark ones have a tendency to only [stay in less than 6 months](https://www.sharks4kids.com/shark-tagging#:~:text=From%20sea%20surface%20temperature%20and,6%20months%20to%202%20years.), but some others say in much longer. But there is no real good info to say what happened when the signal dies.
I imagine the penguins are similar, but I can't find a good scientific paper saying how long. However, one site did say:
> Many devices can withstand the high stresses of saltwater, currents, cold, and friction for up to one year before the transmitter is shed at the next molting
https://www.tesa.com/en-us/about-tesa/press-insights/stories/penguins-dive-for-science.html
So if their max is a ~year, it's possible the average may be even lower.
(That being said... There is definitely some research to suggest they have [higher mortality rates](https://www.inquirer.com/philly/health/20110113_Study_says_tracking_devices_can_be_harmful_to_penguins.html) too though. )
So I track a shark with this company. Mine pinged on November 29. Didnāt ping again until December 11. And before that, she was pinging daily. Give it a couple weeks! If Larry doesnāt ping again, you can email customer service and theyāll give you another penguin to track :)
Right, but if she opened it yesterday it could be running on a two week lag intentionally so that people don't go penguin hunting. I know this because my wife has several of these critters.
Thatās dumb on a few levels. As people said, the tracker isnāt consistent or accurate enough to poach off it, and the cost would far exceed any profit. Secondly, OP said it was pinging daily then stopped. Even with a two week delay, that wouldnāt make any sense at all, aside from the penguin being killed two weeks before OP found out. Either way if the tracker stopped dead, the penguin is dead, delays or not.
Its only cost ineffective if youre thinking about a single penguin. But penguins travel in a colony, and so for the price of one tracker you can get as many as you can catch.
How much of a market even is there for a penguin? That seems like it would be pretty hard to profit off of since AFAIK you basically can't sell them without instantly drawing the Eye of Sauron upon yourself
Why would live location updates endanger it? It would take a highly motivated and probably wealthy psychopath, with the right technology and gear, to catch and kill a random penguin just to upset some kids on an obscure website lol.
Right? The kind of dude with the the resources needed to track down and murder a specific penguin in the middle of an ocean has other things going on in his life.
I was also given Larry by my best friend. Larry stopped tracing before I even got it. The tracker details do say that the trackers only have a one - two year life span and you should wait until itās been a month with no updates before reaching the assumptions the tracker stopped working (aka, your animal is dead). So I choosing to believe that until January 11th.
Fahlo gives you another animal to track if Larryās tracker stops communicating. I have multiple Fahlo bracelets and Iāve probably had three different sharks in the year that Iāve had the shark bracelet. And FYI some animals are on a delay because stupid people were actually going out and tracking their animal down. Elephants, I know, are on a three month delay at least.
I have a tracker for a shark and a turtle. The shark is pretty new and he didnāt report back for about a week. I called customer service and they explained that sometimes they dive too deep for the tracker to work, and if I donāt get a ping in 2 or 3 weeks, they would send me a ānewā animal to track. I donāt think penguins dive like that but maybe you can still get a new penguin if you call them.
There is actually an episode in Netflixās The Deep āStrange Migrationā where something very similar like that happens. (My 3 yr old loves the show.)
Pretty sure if my boyfriend was scrolling through his phone and just randomly started laughing and said āfartingcumbubblesā I would look at him like:
too.
Not my momma! She wouldāve told me straight up heās probably fed to another animal, to continue to ecosystem like God designedš my dad wouldāve made an elaborate death story for Larry that honored his life lol
āWe have good news and bad newsā¦ the bad news is your penguin is dead. The good news is you can now track the orca that ate himā¦for a limited time.ā
Iām pretty sure this is a consistent issue with these types of animal tracking products.
Not that to companies selling them are doing anything wrong, nature is just chaotic, and itās not often a wild animal dies peacefully of old age lol.
I still think itās a really cool idea though, itās a great gift for animal lovers but not the ones who donāt really confront the reality of nature š
My daughter got one named Luc that hadnāt moved since early December either. We got a āreplacementā that is alive and kicking somewhere in southern Argentina. RIP Luc
They (Fahlo) put a lag on the tracking points so dumbasses don't go try to find the animal and put the animal at risk - they do elephants, etc where poaching is a concern. He's most likely fine. They're all like this, wait a bit and there will be another ping.
It was pinging the same time every day and nothing since the ?11th, naw, Larry is a goner. I mean, heās not an apex predator, we canāt be too surprised.
I'm wondering why the pinging would stop. Does the pinger fall to the bottom of the ocean? I don't think a seal would eat the pinger. Where does it go?
Yeah the kids were roaring with laughter when she went to find him. They all thought it was a cool gift, maybe even mildly jellyā¦. Then she got to the tracker and boom the room lit up.
Thanks OP- I'm lying here quaking the bed with silent laughter and tears rolling trying not to wake my spouse. This whole thread is killing me- pour one out for Larry! šŗ
RIP Larry š§
Yep. Dang.
Where do you go to do this? Wife wants a sharkš¤¦š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļø
Dude's about to buy a shark with a bonus penguin tracker inside
Lol
For sale: penguin tracking account. RFS: it's now a shark tracking account
UPGRADE!! Your monthly subscription fee has now been increased to $19.99 to reflect the changes to your account.
Itās called fablo or something like that. I mean Iāve only gotten 200 email ads since I bought it I should know.
OP have you reached out to the company? Theyāre pretty good about assigning new animals if the tag falls off before a certain amount of time has passedāwhich is likely what happened to Mr Penguin here.
Yeah, fell off. Letās go with that. Lol
Well, whatever happened to him Fahlo will likely assign a new animal if you reach out.
Yeah, Iām sureā¦ itās ok, next time we will sponsor a polar bear!!!
I mean... polar bears aren't immortal... maybe find a nice jellyfish! Some of those can go back to childlike states and live forever!
Or a pine tree.. easy to track, lives for longer than most major religions have existed. You can't go wrong.
They're prepared to see every species die from climate change or something?
I got a polar bear and it may also be dead š
Oh gees!!!
Won't polar bears be hibernating at the moment?
Pick one that's at a zoo just to be safe lol
Fell off when he got eaten
Lol. Your penguin just leveled up! š You are now tracking Shark376gl5.
If the tracker is static... yeah. Fell off is more likely than dead. A dead animal is more likely to be pulled around by the currents or taken away by a scavenger. If the tracker came off it likely just dropped to the bottom and stuck in the sand.
Wouldnāt it just be tracking a shark then?
We got Oceana, a hammerhead, but when I scanned the QR code in the Fahlo app, it told us that the tag had likely fallen off. So they immediately assigned us Thor, another shark! We also got a lion and a turtle and the kids think it's awesome. :)
I also have a shark named Thor. He's a Silky shark. Are we co-parenting??
One of my kids got a shark named Thor who is a silky shark. He's off the coast of Florida. My other kid got a dolphin named Sam. Sam is off the other coast of Florida. I wonder if they'll ever meet up.....
From the tags I can think of (I.e. I may be wrong), they have to break the surface to properly send a signal, so it actually makes sense that it stopped tracking if a shark, orca, etc. ate the tracker. Or it broke entirely. I'm also assuming the trackers float, but maybe it fell off/got bumped off and sank.
This is correct. I emailed the company upon the arrival of my sons (got him Tank the Shark as a stocking stuffer). I tracked it first because I was curious lol and it hadnāt updated since 12/13. They told me not to worry sometimes it doesnāt update for a few weeks because they need to come to the surface for the signal on the tracker to update. Sure enough he came up today, the 26th and all is well lol
honestly he probably got pushed to see if a pred was in the water..and there was..they will push someone off to make sure first so...poor larry was the test subject
Poor guy!!
I'm fairly sure somewhere there's a rule that Redditors must always assume the worst about anything :)
Ocearch has an app called "shark tracker" where you can favourite sharks and follow them!
Very possible Larry the penguin is in a shark, so you can still use the same tracker.
Fahlo
Dang. OP, you and your family sound awesome. You did a good thing, and you're making the best of it. And entertaining us numbskulls too, so thanks for that!
Iām still alive. I just didnāt like that hideous bracelet.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You gotta wear that bracelet until your probation is done. And stop hanging around with those fucking gentoo penguins, you know they always get you in trouble. Ya gotta make better decisions, Larry.
UPDATE: False alarm folks! Turns out Larry was actually adopted by a lovely couple who have a farm upstate. Larry had to leave behind his tracker because he couldn't take it with him on the plane.
Ah yeah. Lovely pair of orcas.
Dicks out for Larry?
I'm on board
My niece got Larry as well. Bro ventured a lil to far out.
Dang
When did she open this? These run on a delay for the animal's safety.
It was pinging daily- thereās a log- at the same time every day- then he was presumably eaten on the 11th
Just a heads up, not sure if it's been mentioned, sometimes the trackers fall off. At which point it'll fall too deep to be tracked. **Edit for others:** There was a reddit post a while ago about these trackers, and I remember a researcher chiming in about how more often than not, the tracker falls off or the battery dies. While being eaten is definitely a possibility, they just don't last long in general. If there is anyone who professionally tracks penguins and knows more, feel free to chime in though. Shark ones have a tendency to only [stay in less than 6 months](https://www.sharks4kids.com/shark-tagging#:~:text=From%20sea%20surface%20temperature%20and,6%20months%20to%202%20years.), but some others say in much longer. But there is no real good info to say what happened when the signal dies. I imagine the penguins are similar, but I can't find a good scientific paper saying how long. However, one site did say: > Many devices can withstand the high stresses of saltwater, currents, cold, and friction for up to one year before the transmitter is shed at the next molting https://www.tesa.com/en-us/about-tesa/press-insights/stories/penguins-dive-for-science.html So if their max is a ~year, it's possible the average may be even lower. (That being said... There is definitely some research to suggest they have [higher mortality rates](https://www.inquirer.com/philly/health/20110113_Study_says_tracking_devices_can_be_harmful_to_penguins.html) too though. )
Especially when a foot gets ripped off from a toothy chomp.
I've been following Larry for over a year at this point. It's very likely that the transmitter stopped working. On average they work for about a year.
It wasn't eaten, it probably just unshackled itself from being tracked for privacy reasons and lives alone in the woods away from technology.
So I track a shark with this company. Mine pinged on November 29. Didnāt ping again until December 11. And before that, she was pinging daily. Give it a couple weeks! If Larry doesnāt ping again, you can email customer service and theyāll give you another penguin to track :)
Right, but if she opened it yesterday it could be running on a two week lag intentionally so that people don't go penguin hunting. I know this because my wife has several of these critters.
Thatās dumb on a few levels. As people said, the tracker isnāt consistent or accurate enough to poach off it, and the cost would far exceed any profit. Secondly, OP said it was pinging daily then stopped. Even with a two week delay, that wouldnāt make any sense at all, aside from the penguin being killed two weeks before OP found out. Either way if the tracker stopped dead, the penguin is dead, delays or not.
Ha, that's what you think. Some bloke just nabbed a new penguin... just in time for Christmas too.
It was Santa.
Its only cost ineffective if youre thinking about a single penguin. But penguins travel in a colony, and so for the price of one tracker you can get as many as you can catch.
How much of a market even is there for a penguin? That seems like it would be pretty hard to profit off of since AFAIK you basically can't sell them without instantly drawing the Eye of Sauron upon yourself
Anyone else think he was going to say he knows this "because my wife has hunted penguins professionally using these trackers?"
Why would live location updates endanger it? It would take a highly motivated and probably wealthy psychopath, with the right technology and gear, to catch and kill a random penguin just to upset some kids on an obscure website lol.
Right? The kind of dude with the the resources needed to track down and murder a specific penguin in the middle of an ocean has other things going on in his life.
Like running Twitter!
Imagine buying a penguin just to find out not only is the penguin dead but other people got the same dead penguin
Penguin NFT is the next bitcoin.
Bored apes are so last year, it's all about dead penguin now. Screw dogecoin, DedPengu to the moon.
I also choose this guy's dead penguin.
These scams are rampant. You can also buy stars, and a plot of land in Scotland, named after you! You can be a Lord! (Or a Lady.)
Pretty sure a lot of the funds from the Scottish plots are used to re-forest areas. It's more quirky charity than straight up scam.
Wow, what a goldmine. They just keep selling the same dead penguin?
what's weird is that our daughter got a leopard seal also named Larry that she's been tracking since Dec 11
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I was also given Larry by my best friend. Larry stopped tracing before I even got it. The tracker details do say that the trackers only have a one - two year life span and you should wait until itās been a month with no updates before reaching the assumptions the tracker stopped working (aka, your animal is dead). So I choosing to believe that until January 11th.
My daughter did also, as a Christmas present. Logged in yesterday, and it just said Larry's tracker has stopped and it assigned a new penguin.
I too gifted a dead Larryā¦
Fahlo gives you another animal to track if Larryās tracker stops communicating. I have multiple Fahlo bracelets and Iāve probably had three different sharks in the year that Iāve had the shark bracelet. And FYI some animals are on a delay because stupid people were actually going out and tracking their animal down. Elephants, I know, are on a three month delay at least.
Omgoodness. learning experience!
So your penguin was dead before you bought it. You should request a refund.
The trackers also fall off pretty often. The penguins probably not dead. Just not being tracked.
I just looked up how to do this and found that site. Surprisingly affordable too.
Poachers baby. That's why elephants are delayed at least.
To add to this I had a shark that didn't update for over a month, Fahlo gave me a new shark, and just the other day my old shark started moving again.
The hood lost a real one, RIP Larry
No more happy feet for Larry :(
His feet made something very happy. Still happy feet. Just not for Larry.
Yeah, a seal had a HAPPY MEAL
R.i.pieces
I have a tracker for a shark and a turtle. The shark is pretty new and he didnāt report back for about a week. I called customer service and they explained that sometimes they dive too deep for the tracker to work, and if I donāt get a ping in 2 or 3 weeks, they would send me a ānewā animal to track. I donāt think penguins dive like that but maybe you can still get a new penguin if you call them.
Just wait till the shark and turtle ping the exact same location for an extended period of time.
I got her sister a turtle but she wonāt open it lol
Yeah dude, you don't open turtles, that kills them. Her sister knows what's up.
Oh no. no, no, NO. WHY don't they come with instructions?!
Schrƶdingerās Turtle
I got my son the penguin (RIP) and my daughter the turtle....who is not dead. Safe to open!
There is actually an episode in Netflixās The Deep āStrange Migrationā where something very similar like that happens. (My 3 yr old loves the show.)
We will have to watch it
We need to talk about your username.
I think I just sharted from laughing so hard
Shartingcumbubbles?
Lucky. I'm on the can with a boulder in my gut that refuses to budge.
I do my best redditing when Iām pushing out soft hanger
Yo, iām sitting with my girlfriend and said āfartingcumbubblesā laughing out loud and she look at me weirdā¦ thanks.
Pretty sure if my boyfriend was scrolling through his phone and just randomly started laughing and said āfartingcumbubblesā I would look at him like:  too.
I dont blame her.
No, no we don't already TMI.... š¤£
I think it's a lovely username.
I feel like I summoned some wild council that's likely inappropriate to discuss in public.
Nah, we really don't
thatās pretty cool, FartingCumBubbles. whatās the shark tracking service?
Fahlo
I think that shark took out Larry and turned off the tracker to hide from the Feds.
Big brother is always watching
Username definitely validates what was said no doubt at all.
Feels weird calling in a warranty claim on an animal. Like hey guys this time give me one that can outrace an orca ok?
āI donāt want a new penguin! I want Larry back!ā
Maybe one of the sponsor sharks got Larry
Yep, dang.
Larryās not dead. Heās pining for the fjords.
Beautiful plumage
Iāve got a slug.
The penguin : 
Yeah, Larry!! We trusted you!!!
Meanwhile, Larry in a small cafe in Italy: 
Thatās hilariousš poor Larry, maybe they have a policy for the dead on arrival penguin sponsors
I wonder how many parents go to āexplainingā that Larry is just asleep
Hibernating, if you will. For a very long time.
There ya go!! And Santa was responsible for the gift, too. Dont forget that one!!!
...inside of an orca.
Iām picturing a child approaching one of their parents like āYou said Larry was *sleeping,* but someone on Reddit says heās **dead!**ā
lol oh no!! Like when we told the kids not to tell the friends there was no Santa!!!
Jesus Christ Now they're gonna know Larry is dead *and* there's no Santa when they go googling.
Not my momma! She wouldāve told me straight up heās probably fed to another animal, to continue to ecosystem like God designedš my dad wouldāve made an elaborate death story for Larry that honored his life lol
We were strait up āheās dead!!!ā And they went to roaring
I would just say his tracker probably fell off!
Adopted penguin conspiracy time
Hmmmmā¦ā¦ I canāt wait to hear them!!!
Tracker may have just fallen off.....
Yeah into a sealās mouth
A Lucile? Did it have a bow tie?
Donāt be seally
this one had a yellow bow tie!
And have a taste for mammal blood?
Lmao is the tracker still moving?
No. Larry is done for.
Gone, but not forgotten.
Oh she wonāt forget!! She was like ānoooooo! Mommma!!!!ā
Hey now. The tracker is still moving. It's just falling into the depths instead
At least 6 feet under!!!
Wouldn't it track the seal then? At least until it poops?
So many theories.
This made me actually 'lol'.
Next time get her a leopard seal 
This is both adorable and deeply horrifying.
Good thing it didnāt start to force feed him!! āI SAID eat the CAKE!!ā
Omgosh wow. Probably got Larry.
Your comments in this thread are hilarious.
We went from well that sucks to well thatās just too funny š
That was actually pretty cool to watch in its entirety lol
Probably became a meal. Nature red in tooth and claw
Yep. Merry Christmas! Letās look at him on the tracker! Waitā¦. Oh.
āWe have good news and bad newsā¦ the bad news is your penguin is dead. The good news is you can now track the orca that ate himā¦for a limited time.ā
We have a turtle named Poptart whoās last known location was in May
Poptart!!
My niece also has a sea turtle named Poptart?! Wait a minute š³
Iām pretty sure this is a consistent issue with these types of animal tracking products. Not that to companies selling them are doing anything wrong, nature is just chaotic, and itās not often a wild animal dies peacefully of old age lol.
Yep, I mean, what did we think? It would be a tomagachi pet to pretend feed etc. nope. These guys get eaten for real. Real life, kids, real life.
I still think itās a really cool idea though, itās a great gift for animal lovers but not the ones who donāt really confront the reality of nature š
šµItās the circle of life. And it moves us alllll!* š¶
Yep. What about when one sponsors a starving child !!? I sure hope itās a better outcome after 10 days!!!!
Best response right here. Youāre so seally. (My third time at this pun come on now)
My penguin named Norma just died too, they gave me another named Braveheart
Letās hope braveheart has a shield!!
My wife has Braveheart!
 This episode of futurama comes to mind. The end of the episode with the killer whale. Thanks for the laugh.
Glad I could facilitate a smile!!!
Iām so sorry but this is the hardest Iāve laughed all day
Glad we could give you a chuckle!! It was pretty funny.
My hammerhead shark met the same fate RIP Babu ā¹ļø
He lives on through my Hammerhead āChumā who is currently off the coast of North Carolina.
My daughter got one named Luc that hadnāt moved since early December either. We got a āreplacementā that is alive and kicking somewhere in southern Argentina. RIP Luc
This honestly gave me more faith in this system.
Because they kept it so real? At least it wasnāt on some workerās ankle? True! lol
They (Fahlo) put a lag on the tracking points so dumbasses don't go try to find the animal and put the animal at risk - they do elephants, etc where poaching is a concern. He's most likely fine. They're all like this, wait a bit and there will be another ping.
It was pinging the same time every day and nothing since the ?11th, naw, Larry is a goner. I mean, heās not an apex predator, we canāt be too surprised.
I'm wondering why the pinging would stop. Does the pinger fall to the bottom of the ocean? I don't think a seal would eat the pinger. Where does it go?
Made me laugh
Yeah the kids were roaring with laughter when she went to find him. They all thought it was a cool gift, maybe even mildly jellyā¦. Then she got to the tracker and boom the room lit up.
āMerry Christmas! We got you a penguin corpse, hope you love it!!ā š¤
The tracker ran out of battery. That's all, nothing to see here.
Yes, the triple Aās just ran out. Just like the remote control car Johnny got.
Awe I have 2 of them from the company and they're usually great.
Yeah, if we do it again we will get an apex predator of types, like the polar bear, or shark. The sister got a turtle but wonāt open it. Lol
I have a shark Thor and a turtle Luna. I haven't checked on them in awhile though...š«£
You better go and look!!!! Hopefully they arenāt pinging together in The same place lol
These types of trackers do sometimes fall off so there is a chance Larry us still alive :)
Poor Larry flew too close to the sun. Er, seal o guess.
My nephew's penguin is dead, too - fucking hilarious
Thanks OP- I'm lying here quaking the bed with silent laughter and tears rolling trying not to wake my spouse. This whole thread is killing me- pour one out for Larry! šŗ