Toronto zoo officials find themselves between a rock and a hard place, according to an article in The Week. On the one hand, gay rights supporters think that the zoo’s gay African penguin couple, Buddy and Pedro, should be allowed to do whatever comes naturally. Some even went so far as to call zoo officials homophobic for wanting to separate them.
But the zoo officials want to help perpetuate the endangered species. They would be perfectly willing to let Buddy and Pedro continue their love fest, if they could just get the males to digress long enough to impregnate one of the female African penguins showing more than a passing interest in the pair.
Although other “homosexual” penguins, such as the Central Park Zoo’s chinstrap penguins Roy and Silo, eventually parted ways (Silo dumped Roy in favor of female chinstrap Scrappy) there’s no guarantee that the same thing will happen with Buddy and Pedro.
A similar incident took place at the San Francisco Zoo when longtime lovers — and parents — Harry and Pepper split. Harry dumped Pepper and took up with Linda, a widowed penguin with a penchant for causing trouble, according to an article on Queerty.com.
Until mating season ends, Toronto zoo officials will remain hopeful that either Buddy or Pedro will change his mind and mate with one of the besotted females.
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