Evelyn Guyett was cruising off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula in an inflatable boat when the leopard seal started biting its underside. 鈥淚t was so close I could have poked it,鈥� she recalls, 鈥渋f I had wanted to lose a hand.鈥� Guyett had spent a week collecting Gentoo penguin feathers at 10 nesting sites, scooping them from the faeces-littered floor or plucking them from the rumps of unsuspecting birds. She often ended up splattered head to toe in penguin poo. The DNA in the feathers is now being analysed in a bid to understand why penguins living in northern Antarctica are declining in number. Are they migrating south or are they dying out?
Perhaps surprisingly, Guyett is neither a PhD student nor a professor 鈥� she is a penguin keeper at London Zoo with a degree in animal behaviour science from Lincoln University. When the Institute of Zoology advertised for an assistant on the expedition, she won the place, probably due to her penguin-handling skills. In her care at the zoo are 36 black-footed penguins and a single rockhopper called Ricky, an inquisitive specimen with yellow facial feathers. Every so often, he honks like an old man trying to stifle a sneeze. 鈥淗e鈥檚 really the star of the show,鈥� says Guyett. 鈥淏ecause he鈥檚 hand-reared he鈥檚 really friendly towards humans, so we let visitors come right up close and play with him.鈥�
Not all of the penguins share Ricky鈥檚 good nature, however. Sometimes a pair of penguins will evict another pair from a nest box by pecking at their rivals鈥� beaks and chests. When such fights have ended, Guyett patches up the penguins鈥� wounds and gives them antibiotics. She also ensures the penguins don鈥檛 contract avian malaria by feeding them anti-malarial drugs, and cleans their wooden nest boxes to prevent deadly fungi taking hold.
Advertisement
It鈥檚 a labour-intensive job, but one of the perks is that you get to name the penguins when they鈥檙e born, she says. It鈥檚 impossible to identify a penguin鈥檚 gender without carrying out an analysis of its DNA, so the penguin keepers often get the names wrong. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got a male called Caroline, and a female called Diana who likes to switch mates each season between two males called Buffy and Angelica,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a soap opera in here.鈥� One day she hopes to return to Antarctica, but in the meantime she couldn鈥檛 be happier: 鈥淲ork never feels mundane.鈥�
聯We have a male called Caroline and a female called Diana, who likes to switch between Buffy and Angelica聰