Do you know if the stranded crew ate penguins to survive?
They did! At first they could just walk into the midst of the penguin colony, take a couple by the flipper and walk them back to camp. But after a while, the penguins caught on and then they couldn't get near them. I thought that was so interesting!
Penguins were their main source of food and fuel once they ran out of the food that they called “ship stores”. They kept “sledging rations” that were supposed to be consumed on the trip across Antarctica. It is unbelievable the discipline these men had to not consume these as hungry as they were. They would hold back and reward themselves with a treat every once in a great while. Frank Hurley, the ship’s photographer, devised a stove that would use the blubber of the penguins to cook the meat of the birds. This stove was ingenious and it would actually fuel itself the way he designed it. They tried to use one match per day when they were floating on the ice flow camp and when they were stranded on Elephant Island for six months.