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Young penguins have washed up dead on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, while rough seas have tossed boulders across roads in a night of wild winter weather across Victoria.
It comes as two cold fronts merged and smashed the state over the weekend, bringing Victoria’s “coldest day of the year” on Sunday.
It reached a top of just 13 degrees in Melbourne, with snow falling across some parts of the state.
Big seas that smashed the shoreline proved fatal for young penguins as carcasses started to wash up on beaches around Port Phillip Bay on Monday morning.
Animalia Wildlife Shelter and Rescue director Michelle Thomas urged people to keep an eye out for any exhausted young penguins washed ashore after encountering the rough seas.
“We’ve had bodies of penguins wash up on the shores all around the bay,” she told 3AW.
“They will have just left the nest and they’re not taught to fish by their parents, just one day mum and dad don’t come back.
“Then they get themselves out to sea and they’ve got to figure it out by themselves, and they do that by observation.
“In tumultuous seas they can’t see what to do.”
She said anyone who spotted a penguin washed up on the beach should wrap the bird in a towel, put it in a cardboard box, and call a local wildlife rescue organisation.
Meanwhile, boulders were tossed across roads in the state’s southwest near Warrnambool.
Former premier Denis Napthine snapped a photo of the large rocks across roads in Port Fairy.
“The power of Mother Nature and big seas tossing large boulders across the road at normally beautiful and peaceful Port Fairy,” he posted to Twitter.
Maximum temperatures into the week are expected to only reach the mid to high teens, with a slight reprieve on Tuesday before another cold front pushes through on Wednesday bringing showery and cold conditions.
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