Gay penguin couple adopts abandoned egg
Keepers at Germany’s Bremerhaven zoo couldn’t get two penguin parents to take care of their egg, so they’re trying an experiment - they gave the egg to a gay male penguin couple.
The biological parents “always rolled the egg out of their nest, they kicked it out again and again,” zoo veterinarian Joachim Schoene said.
“Then we made the decision not to give it up and instead try to give it two fathers.”
So far, the experiment has been a success. The two foster dads incubated the egg for 30 days until it hatched and have continued to care for the newborn chick.
The male penguins, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs of Humboldt penguins at the zoo. That means almost a third of the zoo’s 20 penguins who have attempted to mate exhibit homosexual behaviour. Same-sex penguin pairs have also been observed at zoos in Japan and New York.
The behaviour is not considered unusual because homosexuality has been well documented in the animal kingdom.
Scientific observation has shown that most sexual encounters between giraffes are homosexual. Male bottlenose dolphin calves often form homosexual bonds and exhibit bisexual behaviour when they’re older. And female Japanese macaques, or snow monkeys, form monogamous relationships with each other that last from days to weeks.
