hi
>>Bob wrote: > A friend who is an ad producer/director in LA and has worked with penguins > once told me that they can be pretty nasty -- sort of like working with > Deborah Winger with a very sharp beak! >>Hell Replied >When we were banding the babies, we wore very thick leather gloves to >protect our hands - those beaks are really sharp, and very strong, not to >mention their feet which have sharp claws! when i was living in cape town we had a number of penguin colonies. unfortunately we also had a couple of oil spills. according to the folks who volunteered to do the clean up duties, handling a very upset, oil covered penguin, is not easy - takes thick leather gloves to keep your fingers attached to your hands :-) one of the cuter stories to come out of the whole mess, was the family living in blouberg, just up the road from me, and just across the way from the notorious robben island (now theres a name for a rapper!!). anyway - they heard a knocking on the front wall of their house one night, went out to have a look, and there was a oil covered penguin :-) now im pretty sure this story is a blatant lie, but it did find its way into the local press..... there was also the saga of percy, priscilla, and peter. when the oil slick from a sinking ship was approaching one of the colonies, pro active action was taken. penguins were rounded up, put in trucks, then shipped by road to (i think) port elizabeth, around 1,000 kms away. the penguins were then released into the water to make their way back home & arrive after the oil was cleared. satellite tracking units were placed on the backs of 3 of these penguins, (peter, priscilla, and percy) and a website created where you could track their progress. this really took the imagination of most of the people here & became a huge event, with regular press updates etc. was really kind of cute to see how those little animals made their way straight back home at (relatively high speed!! took them about 7 to 10 days, no sleep, no rest. kind of like a bunch of jmdl'ers heading for jonifest... :-) ron
