In Santa Cruz, about half a dozen workers with gloves carefully removed oil from the birds and placed them in pens. "We are giving them food if they will accept it and hoping they will recover their strength. But we have to wait," said Jorge Serra, one of the rescue workers interviewed on local television.
An organiser of the rescue groups, Carla Poleschi, said that workers would spend the first week wiping away oil and gingerly feeding the birds through plastic tubes. She added the penguins were being kept in heated pens to recover from hypothermia.
"This is a very tragic accident," Ms Poleschi said. "While the number of penguin deaths in the past have been high, reaching 40,000 in 1992, we have not seen an incident of this magnitude in many years."
Authorities reported some 70 of the dead penguins were found at the Cabo Virgenes nature reserve on the Straits in the remote province, 2,400km south of Buenos Aires. But environmentalists said they also found 31 of the wide-ranging migratory penguins dead off the Atlantic coast, some 600km south-east of Buenos Aires.
Mystery spill
Despite the evidence of the oil-coated penguins, authorities still cannot find the source of the spill responsible. The Argentine Coast Guard has sent flights in search of spills, but reported finding none that could have caused the birds to be coated in black crude.
"This is very worrisome. We don't know the source," said Francisco Anglesio, environmental undersecretary for Santa Cruz province where the deaths occurred, speaking with reporters in southern Argentina.
It’s an area where dozens of oil-drilling platforms and operations are based, "We have asked businesses that operate in the area to carry out... tests to determine if it's possible that some of their pipes have a leak," Mr Anglesio said.
Rescuers are hopeful that because the migration period is ending, and the majority of the penguins have reached the coast, they will not find any more oil-soaked penguins in coming days.
Oil can cause respiratory problems and destroy the insulating properties of penguin feathers, leading to the rapid loss of body heat. To stay warm, the birds head towards shore, where they can eventually die from starvation.
The last reported oil spill along the Strait occurred last September, killing 40 penguins.