QUESTION:
Why don't you wear gloves to protect your hands from the penquins when
working with them? and Could you get diseases from the penquins' bites?

                Sean E., 6th grade, Taylor Road Middle School
                Alpharetta, GA


ANSWER from Carol Vleck, Researcher, Palmer Station, Antarctica
            Fri, 7 Feb 1997 08:47:08 -0600

Hi Sean,
You probably saw my field assistant, David Lott being bitten by the penguin
he was holding and then you saw something on his hand that looked like
blood.  But in actual fact, David was holding the penguin by its legs right
under its tail and the penguin......., well, never mind (this happens a
lot!).  The  penguins do bite us occasionally. Some of them are more prone
to be biters than others, and sometimes they give us karate chops with
their flippers which is very painful. But they rarely break the skin--we
just get little bruises.  When it is cold, we do wear gloves to protect our
hands from the cold as well as the birds.  Most of the diseases that birds
might have down here are probably not ones that humans could get.  If we
get bitten badly, the bite might get infected, but we wash our hands a lot
and so far we haven't had any problems.

Thanks for your question!
Carol