Posted on 02/08/2006 2:53:22 PM PST by presidio9
Six gay penguins at a German zoo are still refusing to mate with females of the species flown in from Sweden in 2005, the zoo said.
The problem was that the female Humboldt penguins have proven too shy in their advances, the director of the zoo in the northern port city of Bremerhaven said.
"The Swedes will not make the first move," Heike Kueck said.
The females were flown in last year in a bid to bring the males to mate and help save the Humboldt species from extinction.
Kueck said last year she was optimistic the initiative would be successful because zoo keepers had noticed that at one point a female penguin had managed to cause a couple of males to "separate".
The zoo has 10 male penguins of which six have shown strong signs of preferring male company and formed couples among themselves.
The initiative to "turn" the penguins and make them mate had prompted a furious response from gay rights groups.
In a statement posted on its Internet website, the zoo on Wednesday sought to defend itself from fresh criticism.
"We will be delighted if the penguins form even one heterosexual couple and manage to produce first an egg, and then a little one," it said.
"But of course we accept the male couples that have formed and we are not trying to enforce heterosexuality, as we were accused of doing last year."
Male Humboldt penguin pair "Sechs Punkt" (Six Point) and "Schraegstrich" (Slash) cuddling at the Bremerhaven zoo in 2005. Six gay penguins at a German zoo are still refusing to mate with females of the species flown in from Sweden in 2005(AFP/DDP/File)
Brokeback Iceberg
The world famous Nude Penquin Beach
Chapman:"Unless it's a male"
Cleese:"Yes...it looks fairly butch"
This story is gay.
"and now the penguin on your telly will redcorate your flat"
Studies on these gay penguin marriages, by the way, show that they haven't affected any of the straight penguin marriages in the same aquariums and zoos. The straight penguins have continued to mate and raise their kids despite the presence of the avian sodomites.
ping
Gay penguins... we have any Photoshoppers out there?
Why not put the female in with the 4 that hadn't gone brokeback.
It is Germany after all.
Penguins have gay rights groups?!!! Say, were these the same penguins that were forcibly isolated from the female penguins (by a pervert penguin keeper) until they started freaking out with each other?
avian sodomites
Birds of a feather, decorate together.
It's not uncommon for male birds to bond with other male birds or for female birds to bond to female birds.
I would be surprised to see a bonded pair (regardless of gender) separate in response to introducing single birds into the flock.
So I guess we can expect the Humboldt penguin soon to take its place alongside the dodo and the passenger pigeon. Better that than to "force" the penguins to be "breeders," even though it should be the nature of a penguin to breed.
I don't know what brought this species to the verge of extinction, but I do know that political correctness and a bizarre anthropomorphism will finish it off.
Are they buggering one another or just holding flippers?
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