Monday, April 18, 2016

Gay Penguins Move To A Place Where They Can Settle Down Together

By Stephen Messenger
A pair of bonded male king penguins will now be able to spend their lives together in relative peace — at least without pressure to end the good thing they have going.
Up until recently, Stan and Olli had been living at the Berlin Zoo, where they'd been sent to be a part of a breeding program. As time went by, however, it became clear to their keepers that the penguins had no interest in finding romance with the females there. Their commitment, it seems, is only to each other.
"They're gay, as far as we know," Christiane Reiss, Berlin Zoo spokeswoman, told TheLocal.de. "They never bred. And when it came to courtship, they only mated with one another."

Flickr/Sheep purple

Rather than continue to try to drive a wedge between Stan and Olli, or worse, separate them in hopes that they'll breed with someone else, keepers at the zoo decided to move them to a new facility — together.
This week, the penguin couple was transferred to a zoo in Hamburg where they should find things a bit more accommodating.
Not only is this new zoo all-male (when it comes to penguins), keepers there are apparently more understanding of their lifestyle. In fact, it's already home to another same-sex penguin pair, Juan and Carlos, who are sometimes given a plaster egg for them to experience what it's like to act as parents.

Flickr/YAY - Photography

While we would, of course, prefer to see Stan and Olli living wild and free, it is reassuring to know that even in captivity they can at least still follow their hearts.

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