Poking penguins with sticks, for science

November 6, 2014 7:47 PM

"I have to approach the bird very slowly - it takes about ten minutes. In many cases the bird wakes up first." h/t reddit
posted by heyforfour (16 comments total)

I gotta say, I'm on the penguins' side. I'd like to see how that guy likes being poked with a stick every minute when he's trying to catch a nap in the afternoon.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 8:48 PM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I do believe I have found my dream job.
posted by Grandysaur at 9:23 PM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'd be a very bitey penguin if some jerk kept poking me until I woke up.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 9:24 PM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

And then just took some notes and left. "All right, you heartless bastard. What's so important?" "Nothing. Just checking what it takes to wake an exhausted penguin."
posted by hat_eater at 11:44 PM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you can't poke them, you can send an adorable fluffy robot penguin chick to spy on them (DOI).
posted by elgilito at 1:05 AM on November 7, 2014 [8 favorites]

I wouldn't touch this study with a ten foot pole.
posted by fairmettle at 2:39 AM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just give the penguin a smart phone. They'll deprive themselves of sleep.
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:49 AM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

What else have we learned? There are more penguins than you can shake a stick at.
posted by hal9k at 2:58 AM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

A friend of mine has studied those same king penguins on Crozet and did worse than just poking them with a stick. He had to tackle individuals and wrestle them to the ground and stick them with a needle to take a blood sample.
posted by octothorpe at 5:08 AM on November 7, 2014

He had to tackle individuals and wrestle them to the ground and stick them with a needle to take a blood sample.

TLC Presents....
posted by Fizz at 5:21 AM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

The sad thing is "King Penguin Blood Wrestling" would be truer to TLC's original vision than anything else they've put out recently. They could even get Ernie Brown Jr. to do it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:36 AM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Something tells me that penguin researchers have a LOT of time on their hands to think up clever ways of bothering penguins.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:43 AM on November 7, 2014

You have to be very well trained to do post-doctoral penguin poking research. I wonder what his Ph.D studies were on. Walrus wrestling? Seal stroking? Auk pawing? Tern touching? Booby... okay i'll stop.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 7:20 AM on November 7, 2014

There's a fine line between science and animal cruelty.
posted by tommasz at 7:29 AM on November 7, 2014

If I had known at 17 that these types of possibilities existed in science, I would have tried much, much harder to get into college. I am now sad that the closest I will ever get to a penguin is at a zoo.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 10:51 AM on November 7, 2014

Many years ago I worked for the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. Sadly I didn't get to go south, but I did hear some great stories, including the legend of the researcher who was studying stress in penguins by taking blood samples to check their hormone levels. It rapidly became clear to everyone else on the base that the primary cause of stress in the local penguin population was having their blood sampled by said researcher - it didn't take long before the penguins would start running (well, waddling) away the moment they caught sight of him. I have no idea whether the research was ever published.

(I see Octothorpe's friend had similar problems...)
posted by pharm at 9:15 AM on November 8, 2014