KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A penguin at the Kansas City Zoo is being globally recognized for his inspiring story of survival.

Littlefoot, a king penguin at the KC Zoo, placed 2nd in a global competition that’s educating people about penguins and how to protect them.

Lightfoot was nominated because of his inspirational story of survival, having a very low chance at birth. When he hatched, he lost a lot of blood and weighed less than half a pound.

“From then on, he just grew and grew and grew like a normal king penguin. It’s just one of those, it is a miracle penguin cause it was really, really rough going at the start,” Brian Dorn, Director of Animal Care, Kansas City Zoo said.

It was a no brainer for the staff to nominate him for the March of the Penguin Madness, a global competition meant for raising education and awareness for the species.

“Part of his personality was because we hand raised him for a long time too, so he’s very comfortable around people. He’s usually the first one out the door when we do the penguin marches on the weekends and stuff,” Dorn said.

Out of hundreds of nominees from around the world, Littlefoot placed 2nd out of the 47 selected to compete.

Another big feat for the penguin his keepers say is inspiring communities across the world to learn more about penguins and how to protect them.

“Our hope is that people did make that connection because littlefoot is such a special penguin, and now they want to make sure that generations and generations after littlefoot are out there and in the wild for all of those kids and for the world to know how special penguins are.”