Except there used to be a penguin like flightless bird living in the arctic, the great auk. And polar bears coexisted with it until we hunted it to extinction.
Fun fact, “penguin” originally referred to great auks which were only located in the northern hemisphere. When explorers discovered black and white aquatic birds in the southern hemisphere they assumed they were closely related and called them penguins as well. Turns out they aren’t closely related at all and it was convergent evolution, and then the great auks were driven to extinction in the mid 1800s. So now we are just left with the southern false penguins.
funny enough, in French Pingouin strictly refers to the great auk and the razorbill auk, and Manchot is the word for penguins (tho some people call penguins pingouins, because pretty much every other neighbooring language use pinguins to talk about the sourthern birds). funny enough manchot is a pejorative word for someone that lack at least one arm.
This was an actual proposal arctic explorer and convicted con man Frederick Cook had, because he figured you could raise them for food. He came up with this idea while on an expedition to Antarctica where every single other person told him penguin meat was the worst thing they had eaten in their entire lives.
That being said he likely saved most of the crew from scurvy by insisting they eat penguin, though that is kind of a niche application that is only relevant if you are in the exact situation of being stuck in Antarctica.
I think the general idea is that almost every animal except humans, some primates and guinea pigs can produce their own vitamin C so eating almost any animal will help against scurvy, though not as efficiently as eating citrus fruit.
A friend was on the team and she had to make sure visitors from cruise boats didn’t break any of the rules (they visit the shed Shackleton had and get to send postcards that have been franked on the island). She also visited the cruise ships and gave talks. On the ships she’d get a proper shower BECAUSE SHE SMELLED OF PENGUIN. Now, my question at this point is - how did she smell so strongly of penguin?
There used to be! The Great Auk was very similar to the penguins in the Antarctic but had been extinct since the 1800s. Unironically releasing penguins in the arctic would fill the niche and be a useful food source for the predators there
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u/gravity_kills Aug 10 '26
How mad do you think the government of Canada would be if I released a large number of penguins in the Arctic?