Question: have u ever been attacked by an animal

Claire El Mouden answered on 25 Jun 2013:

Brilliant question.

In 2000, I helped to look after sick penguins in South Africa. There was an oil spill and 20,000 birds got oiled.

I was working in the intensive care unit, where sick and injured birds were kept. There were quite a few birds with eye injuries (as stressed, oiled penguins would sometimes peck each others’ eyes). Those birds needed cream putting in their eyes to help heal them three times a day. So to do that, I’d have to catch them and then hold their heads still while someone would put the cream in….most birds accepted it, but there was one bird there, we nicknamed him Nelson, who was SO aggressive. He’d hiss and go for you with his beak. I was very good at grabbing penguins safely by then, but Nelson was so strong and fast,most days he’d manage to get me, and he’d make deep scratches on my arms with his beak, and bruise my arms by beating his flippers on them – even if I used a towel to throw over him first, he’d find a way! In the end, the first aid volunteers decided to bandage my arms every morning so I stopped getting hurt! I had so many scratches and bruises on my arms, for weeks after that, everyone in the street would stare at mean wondering what on earth had happened!