A RESIDENT of Longleat Safari Park waddled his way into the limelight when he appeared on channel four documentary Supervet last month.

The keepers of ten and a half week old humboldt penguin Wall-e turned to supervet Noel Fizpatrick for help with his badly deformed foot, which sits at a 50-60 degrees angle.

Because of his deformity, Wall-e has been kept separate from the adult penguins, and is also sadly an orphan, being hand raised by his keepers since he was just three weeks old.

The documentary shows Wall-e's scans as well as his two operations, where Mr Fizpatrick used a surgical plate to straighten the penguin's foot.

Series producer of supervet James Bainbridge said: “We were contacted by Longleat in the hope we could fix Wall-e’s foot, as it was a problem with his bone so their onsite vet couldn’t do a lot for him.

“Being an orthopaedic specialist, Noel was able to fix Wall-e’s foot, although this was something quite different to what he is used to, so he also had the help of an avian specialist, who works with birds.

“We visited Longleat twice in our filming of Wall-e’s story, and we had a lovely time visiting the park and the staff were very accommodating.

“We got some very cute shots of Wall-e before his two operations and then filmed during surgery.

“We find that children especially find it very interesting watching the operations and seeing how these animals are made better.

“If it wasn’t for his treatment we don’t think he would have survived as penguins tend to play quite rough, and he was just too weak for that.

“It’s a very happy story and little Wall-e has now been put back in with the other penguins and was doing very well when we carried out a check up.”

Many fans of the programme shared their thoughts on social media.

Simone Kell said: "For all the amazing things Noel does for all animals he should be knighted a saint. Wish there was more like him. God bless you Noel.

Margo Green said: "Yet another amazing story, wonderful to see Wall-e swimming and the joy in Professor Noel Fitzpatrick's face was good to see. Amazing man doing amazing things and trying to achieve more. "

Watch online at www.channel4.com/programmes/the-supervet.