Two male Humboldt penguins at the zoo in Bremerhaven, Germany, were given an egg that had been rejected by its mother. The gay couple, named Z and Vielpunkt, successfully hatched the egg and are now raising the chick as their own. A zoo official said, "Z and Vielpunkt, both males, gladly accepted their 'Easter present' and began straight away with hatching the egg. Since the chick arrived they are behaving in the same way as one would expect a heterosexual couple to do. Both happy fathers are now diligently handling the everyday care ... of their adopted offspring." There are at least 6 gay penguins at the Bremerhaven zoo. In 2005, four female penguins were brought in from a Swedish zoo in an attempt to "convert" the gays, but the gay pengiuns rejected the advances of the females, proving once again that homosexuality is not a choice. The zoo official added, "Homosexuality is nothing unusual among animals. Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction." Congratulations to the proud parents!
Named after the explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt who first studied them, Humboldt penguins are an endangered species. The current population in the wild is estimated at between 3,300 and 12,000. Their native habitat is the Pacific coast of South America. Adult Humboldt penguins grow to be 26-28 inches long and can weigh as much as 13 lbs.
This is ridiculous. They'll mess up the poor little chick. Parents who are not 100% absolutely perfect should not be allowed to adopt, and won't you think of all the deserving heterosexual penguins who have tried so hard to have children and haven't?
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I thought they did that regularly and the gay penguin couples had already successfully raised a number of chicks.
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Mayabird wrote:I thought they did that regularly and the gay penguin couples had already successfully raised a number of chicks.
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I think this is the first time an abandoned egg was deliberately entrusted to the penguins rather than them adopting on their own.
Good for them, I'd say. The species is in danger, and if they have no interest in breeding, this will at least ensure another chick grows up healthy.
What I personally find most amazing is that they seamlessly combined their same-sex partnership with childcare. It looks like instinct is a lot more flexible than I would have assumed, since they appear to have adopted both the traditional "male" and "female" roles (IIRC penguins have one parent who provides food, the other shelters the offspring) without any difficulty. For humans that isn't an issue at all, I'm surprised it turns out to be natural for penguins too.
wautd wrote:There are at least 6 gay penguins at the Bremerhaven zoo. In 2005, four female penguins were brought in from a Swedish zoo in an attempt to "convert" the gays,
No wonder these guys are endangered! I remember that story is had a whole bunch of moronic activists up in arms about the evil Swedish seductresses.
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Bounty wrote:What I personally find most amazing is that they seamlessly combined their same-sex partnership with childcare. It looks like instinct is a lot more flexible than I would have assumed, since they appear to have adopted both the traditional "male" and "female" roles (IIRC penguins have one parent who provides food, the other shelters the offspring) without any difficulty. For humans that isn't an issue at all, I'm surprised it turns out to be natural for penguins too.
I think you recall incorrectly. First of all, there is more than one penguin species and their child-rearing does vary. For the Emperor penguin, the father incubates the egg during the Antartic winter, awaiting the return of the female in spring with a bellyful of fish. After that, though the parents alternate fishing and childcare. The penguins in question, however, are Humbolt penguins, not Emperors.
Equal parental care is actually a common strategy among birds, unlike mammals where it's rare (humans being an exception), so I'm not surprised a same-sex pair could successfully rear a chick.
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