Is it true that there is a profession called penguin flipper?

Many have heard about the unique workers of the Southern Arctic - penguin flippers, or lifters, who save the lives of birds that have tipped over on their backs, helping them to regain an upright position. We found out whether such a profession exists.

Typically descriptions of this profession explain: “Penguins living near polar stations react vividly to flying helicopters. Animals lift their heads and lean back, and since their necks are short and their bodies are clumsy, they often fall onto their backs. Penguins cannot roll over and stand up on their own, so after each arrival or departure a specialist comes to their aid. Otherwise the animals will die" (RBC). Mentions of this profession can be found in Russian and foreign sources ("Channel One", "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", "Rabota.Mail.ru", The Best Book of Bizarre But True Stories Ever, Twitter).

In the English-speaking environment, this story gained fame almost 40 years ago thanks to the popular US comic strip The Bloom County. In 1986 came out a miniature about how one of the main characters - the penguin Opus - remembers his childhood in the Falkland Islands. The penguins gathered on the beach, watched the Royal Air Force fly by in the sky, and when the planes came in from the sea, 2 million penguins raised their heads higher and higher until they fell on their backs.

According to The Washington Times, the phenomenon of falling penguins was first documented in 1982 in reports from British Air Force pilots taking part in the war with Argentina over the disputed Falkland Islands. The original reports have not survived, but later some Internet users who served in the Falkland Islands in the 80s and 90s confirmed this information. They also added that rookie pilots were being pranked into going on "penguin patrols" to retrieve penguins they had dropped.

The story attracted the attention of the British media, which even given The name of the phenomenon is “penguin capsizing.” To find out the truth in 2001, the British Royal Navy and the British Antarctic Survey sent mission to Antarctica. Scientists spent five weeks flying over penguin colonies in a helicopter. During one hundred hours of flights, not a single penguin capsize was observed.

In 2011, the television company RT, with the help of the Chilean Air Force, conducted its own experiment, about which told in the video. At the beginning of the video, German ornithologist Anke claims that her duties do indeed include helping capsized penguins. Nevertheless, from the reaction of her partner, it can be assumed that the girl is joking. The head of the Russian polar station Bellingshausen also says that this is the first time he has heard about such work. At the end of the fragment, it is clear that a plane flying over a colony of penguins has no effect on the birds.

For the first time, penguin flipper as a full-time profession mentioned in the Russian-speaking environment - in the comic book “The Legend of the Penguin Turner”, published in 2005 on the website about flightless birds “Krylyev.net”. A series of illustrations tells a comic story about the Penguin Flipper, who, in his free time from work, also “knits sweaters for little Tasmanian penguins.”

But this joke became widely known at the suggestion of satirist Mikhail Zadornov. In his humorous program “The Penguin Raiser,” released at the end of December of the same year, Zadornov talks about a rare profession that supposedly exists only in Antarctica on a site owned by Russia. In his characteristic manner, Zadornov passes off a joke as the truth.

After this speech the profession began mention various media and employment portals - already with the attached description job descriptions, working conditions, requirements for candidates and proposed salaries (from 140,000 to 490,000 rubles per month). And in the UK, such attention to the problem of penguin tipping even prompted the Edinburgh Zoo to officially deny information about the presence of a lift position in the zoo.

Finally, it is worth noting that penguins, although they look clumsy, are quite capable of independently rising from a lying position on their stomach and back, as you can see by watching the video (Here And Here).

So, penguins are not at risk of death from capsizing, so they do not need professional flippers and lifters. This is nothing more than a joke by British pilots, which turned into an urban legend, retold to the general Russian public by Mikhail Zadornov at the suggestion of the Krylyev.net website.

Legend

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on topic:

1. The Guardian. Official — penguins don't topple over
2. Snopes. Do Penguins Fall Over Watching Airplanes?
3. Snopes. Does Australia's Oldest Man Knit Sweaters for Injured Penguins?