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Penguin Pets
Ellis D writes "It looks like pengiuns could make a good house pet according to an article over at ScienceDaily Mag. "
Once again I just want an AIBO- they feed/recharge
themselves. I imagine feeding a
penguin would be a somewhat frightening experience. But
a puffin would be so cute *grin*.
I live in the South Island od New Zealand and we have a few native species of penguins.
The most common is a species called little blues.
They are about as big as a small chicken.
Just recently there was a current affairs story on TV where somebody was having serious problems with penguins nesting under their house. Apparently their chicks make a lot of noise, and they smell quite strongly of fish. I don't think that these birds would be much fun to have as a pet as I think they have a tendency to nip.
Also in NZ I think it's illegal to have tham as pets as they are very strongly protected, another problem those people in the TV story were having as, to move them required special permission from the authorities.
...about how Air Force pilots would fly over flocks of penguins on the ground. The penguins would turn their heads up to look at the plane, and the penguins weren't bright enough to realize that if they turned their heads back too far, they'd fall over. Supposedly these pilots would do this a lot just to watch an entire flock of penguins fall over on their backs.
Was this just an urban legend? Anyone else know anything about this?
Its neve too cold for a penguin! If its too cold for you, there are fuzzy and cuddly penguins and can be found at linuxmall. I have a few proudly hacking away on my webcam.
Hey, if they can do a dog, why not a Penguin?
Most penguin species prefer fairly temperate weather.
It may be illegal, but that hasn't stopped many people from having exotic pets of all kinds. If they are caught, there are always ways to accomodate the legal rules, execpt if you happen to have a big cat or something that frightens neighbors. The rule is if someone complains, you have some explaining to avoid some very stiff fines and penalties.
this article is a good example of why I do not call behavioral guessers "scientists." I did not see a certain possibility mentioned, and I doubt highly that the "scientists" considered it at all. The reason I doubt this is because I have examined many behavioral guessing studies and have never seen this angle considered... What I am refering to is this: will the people of the /. community conceed to me that it is possible that the penguins who nested near the trail perhaps were less nervous -in general- than the ones in remote areas? First, the ones in remote areas already show themselves to be less social by simple fact that they are in a remote area vrs closer to the rest of the penguins. Second, the trail presumably has been there for a while (at least a few years), but I would venture to say that penguins probably make a new nest each year. Point being, the penguins who were less nervous around people still showed signs of stress, just less of it. Never the less, they made their nests close to and withing the main group (to which the trail leads) because they were more social penguins than the others. This, and this alone, explains why they are less nervous. If no man had ever been there, I assert one could still find the same results by comparing penguins in the more remote areas to the ones who are closer together. Now, granted-if someone wanted to have a penguin as a pet, it would make sense to have a more social penguin. This is how domestication takes place, after all. You take the group that is the most docile, most social, or whatever quality you want. You breed those. From the new batch, you take the most of that group, and breed those. So on and so forth. This study proved nothing more than something that should be common sense: within a society (be it penguins, humans, dogs, whatever) there are some members that are more social than other members. The more social members tend to group together, by nature of their being more social. The less social tend to be more isolationistic (if thats not a word, it should be). The trail, according to the article, goes into the heart of the penguin colony-therefore where the most social penguins are. I think I've made my point in as many ways as possible now... oh, BTW, someone mentioned that the article said the less frightened penguins still did 40 head-turns a minute, vrs the 200 from the others. the article never says it is 40 a minute. It didn't specify the time span at all, actually. It says that "after 15 minutes of exposure" it was 40 vrs 200. They might have meant "DURING 15 mintes of exposure.." because to say "after" means it came "after" (duh) the 15 mintes. So, it is possible that the 40 head turns were within 15 minutes, otherwise the time is unspecified. Makes more sense. The nervous ones did it 200 times-can you imagine how fast -that- would be, if it was in 1 minute?