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I think you are mistaken, this just an old iron hay cutter. I have exactly the same thing in my backyard.

https://somersetshop.co.uk/old-vintage-cast-iron-chaff-cutte...

I did some googling for the phrases "presse manchots" and "penguin press", combined with "Kerguelen". I couldn't find any reference, anywhere, to this device being a penguin press- though of course the phrase "penguin press" is difficult to google because of the publishing house.

I did find another, very different, device in this French news article which is a peat press in a Paris museum exhibit about Kerguelen, which was mistakenly called a "penguin press". It was actually used to make peat bricks, either as building material or as fuel.

So is there some myth that means that any press-like device on Kerguelen is assumed to have been used on penguins?

https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/2015/04/06/la-decouverte-des-...

That's quite possible, a lot of myths get invented and distorted along the years in such places.

It was "common knowledge" but I'm not that surprised either to hear that it's wrong.

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