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  • 2019-02-20 (xsd:date)
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  • No, the Edinburgh zoo does not employ a ‘penguin erector’ (en)
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  • The Edinburgh zoo employs somebody to pick up penguins, according to a popular tweet, because the bipedal birds fall after looking up every time a plane flies over the Scottish capital. The zoo issued a statement shortly after the tweet went viral to let internet users know that no such positions exists. Boy in the pub was telling me his job is a penguin erector so every time a plane flys over Edinburgh zoo the penguins can’t take their eyes off it and end up falling over n he just goes round picking them back up, 38 penguins 2000 flights a day, said Twitter user @shalylaa in August 2018. Boy in the pub was telling me his job is a penguin erector so every time a plane flys over Edinburgh zoo the penguins can’t take their eyes off it and end up falling over n he just goes round picking them back up, 38 penguins 2000 flights a day — SKH (@shalaylaa) August 19, 2018 The tweet was shared 170,000 times at the time, and is now resurfacing as a Facebook post . However, the boy in the pub was wrong. Within a day of the initial message, the Edinburgh zoo commented directly on the tweet, confirming certain users’ doubts that the information was in fact false. We're sure this will come as a disappointment to many but there is no such position here at Edinburgh Zoo ? — Edinburgh Zoo (@EdinburghZoo) August 20, 2018 The Edinburgh zoo is also home to more than 130 penguins , not 38, as the tweet suggest. They can be seen at all times via the Edinburgh zoo’s live penguin cam, available here . The Edinburgh zoo also addressed the more general myth that penguins in Antarctica topple upon watching airplanes, sometimes causing their death. It's a very popular rumour, but penguins do not track planes as they fly overhead. Any clumsy penguin behaviour tends to be unrelated to aircraft ? — Edinburgh Zoo (@EdinburghZoo) August 20, 2018 The myth is almost as old as the internet, and according to fact-checking website Snopes it may have originated in a 1985 article of the Audubon Society magazine. AFP Fact Check found that the article was picked up and shared online as a joke in 1993. Screenshot taken on February 18, 2019 of a web page from Fun_People Archive Over time, the story became credible enough that a British Royal Navy mission was sent to the Falkland Islands to investigate the matter in 2000, The Guardian reported at the time . Two Lynx helicopters flew over King penguins to observe the birds’ reaction and found that Not a single bird fell over after 17 flights, Dr Richard Stone of the British Antarctic Survey said. (en)
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