Published on Tuesday November 13, 2012
Love is in the air... male African penguins Buddy and Pedro are exhibiting signs of mating behaviour.
Eggs are popping out all over the place in the Toronto Zoo’s African penguin exhibit, and half of them belong to Buddy and Pedro, the pair whose bromance made international headlines last year.
Buddy and Pedro and their female mates are two of the four pairings of endangered African penguins at the zoo that have laid, collectively, six eggs in the past few days.
Depending on which eggs are fertilized, the hatching should start sometime in mid-December.
But zoo officials and staff have their fingers crossed, because there are no guarantees.'
For instance, Buddy and his partner, Farai, produced two eggs that hatched last February. But sadly, the excited new parents built a nest that was too tight and accidentally smothered the chicks.
This time they have one egg, with a second expected later this week.
Pedro and his partner, Thandiwe, recently produced two eggs, their first, explained Tom Mason, the zoo’s curator of birds and invertebrates.
Last year, five African penguin chicks were born at the zoo, and three males survived.
Buddy and Pedro were initially inseparable last year, standing close together and making amorous noises. Some people dubbed them the “gay penguins,” a curiosity that launched them to world-wide fame.
Male same-sex pairs in a few other zoos around the world have even raised penguin chicks together in the past.
But Toronto Zoo officials hastened to explain that it’s not uncommon to see same-sex pairings among penguins — or other species, for that matter.
It’s also common for them to bolt for the opposite gender once the new animal is thrust onto the scene.
That’s what happened last year, when the zoo separated Buddy and Pedro for breeding purposes — to the consternation of some members of the public.
They soon locked on to their female mates, and haven’t looked back — at each other — since, say zoo officials.
There are 11 African penguins in Toronto’s enclosure, five of each sex and a lone male. A female died.
To encourage the animals to pair up last year, zoo handlers had them nesting in isolated quarters, away from the public. This year the bonds stuck, Mason said, and the birds are roaming around freely with their mates.
“It’s very early in the year for us. Last time they took two months before any decided to lay eggs. This time it’s two weeks,’’ Mason said of the recent egg-stravaganza.
Ziggy and DJ were the first to lay eggs this season, and they have two.
Colby and Greenbird have one egg, and are expected to have a second by the end of this week.
A fifth pair, Shaker and Flap, are digging a nest, but haven’t produced eggs yet.
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