An happily ever after story... maybe :-)
Jun. 20th, 2010 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reviews_and_ramblingsTwo years ago, in 2008, two male penguins, dabbed by the media as gay penguins, started placing stones at the feet of other male penguins, "biological" parents in an het couple, in a tentative to hide the theft of their eggs.
"One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there," a keeper told the Austrian Times newspaper. "It's not discrimination. We have to fence them separately, otherwise the whole group will be disturbed during hatching time," he added.
The same German zoo, Bremerhaven Zoo in northern Germany, where the gay penguins were hosted provoked outrage from gay lobby groups after attempting to mate a group of six gay male penguins with Swedish female birds who were flown in especially to seduce them. But the project was abandoned after the males refused to be "turned", showing no interest in their would-be mates. But now the zoo has relented, leaving the six gay penguins to live happily with their chosen mates.
Now two of these gay penguins, named 'Z' and 'Vielpunkt', have hatched an egg and are rearing the adopted chick. The birds were given an egg rejected by its biological parents. Joachim Schoene, a zoo vet, said: "Another pair abandoned an egg by pushing it out of their nest and so we placed it in the care of the homosexual penguins. They accepted the egg immediately and took turns in incubating it with their body heat. They did this for 35 days and the baby was born on April 25."
"It is in a little cave in the enclosure which is fiercely guarded by one or the other at all times so we don't know yet if we have a little boy penguin or a little girl one." Mr Schoene added: "In eight weeks the baby will have its downy fur and be able to be removed to move about the colony."
This is probably what really make me sad, that they are not allowed to be a big happy family, but that is probably a normal behaviour in a zoo management
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190747/My-dads-Gay-penguins-parents.html#ixzz0rOTMuDHQ
"One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there," a keeper told the Austrian Times newspaper. "It's not discrimination. We have to fence them separately, otherwise the whole group will be disturbed during hatching time," he added.
The same German zoo, Bremerhaven Zoo in northern Germany, where the gay penguins were hosted provoked outrage from gay lobby groups after attempting to mate a group of six gay male penguins with Swedish female birds who were flown in especially to seduce them. But the project was abandoned after the males refused to be "turned", showing no interest in their would-be mates. But now the zoo has relented, leaving the six gay penguins to live happily with their chosen mates.
Now two of these gay penguins, named 'Z' and 'Vielpunkt', have hatched an egg and are rearing the adopted chick. The birds were given an egg rejected by its biological parents. Joachim Schoene, a zoo vet, said: "Another pair abandoned an egg by pushing it out of their nest and so we placed it in the care of the homosexual penguins. They accepted the egg immediately and took turns in incubating it with their body heat. They did this for 35 days and the baby was born on April 25."
"It is in a little cave in the enclosure which is fiercely guarded by one or the other at all times so we don't know yet if we have a little boy penguin or a little girl one." Mr Schoene added: "In eight weeks the baby will have its downy fur and be able to be removed to move about the colony."
This is probably what really make me sad, that they are not allowed to be a big happy family, but that is probably a normal behaviour in a zoo management
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190747/My-dads-Gay-penguins-parents.html#ixzz0rOTMuDHQ
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 04:44 pm (UTC)I imagine any penguin couple who kept stealing other birds' eggs would be segregated for the safety of the colony. The way the icecaps are melting, we'll probably see a day where the only surviving pengies are in zoos.
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Date: 2010-06-20 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 09:25 am (UTC)