It’s an unprecedented case at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in New York, USA: a couple of male penguins hatched an egg that had been abandoned and are now taking care of the chick together.
The chick was born on January 1, after Elmer and Lima, two Humboldt penguins, formed a pair in the last mating season.
This is the first time the zoo has trusted same-sex adoptive parents to care for an egg. The use of adoptive couples began to happen after two breeding couples broke fertilized eggs.
In order for the eggs to survive and hatch, keepers exchanged them for dummy eggs and gave the real ones to foster couples who hatched them.
Last year, Opal was the first penguin to be born with foster parents after Juan and Rosalita, the biological parents, broke the egg that Luis and Calypso eventually hatched.
This year, luck fell to a couple of penguins of the same sex. Elmer was born at the zoo in 2016 and Lima in 2019 and they got together last fall, having created a nest and defended their territory, which led keepers to bet on them for adoptive parents.
“It takes practice [para chocar ovos]. Some couples, when we give them a toy egg, they will sit on the nest but drop the egg and don’t hatch it properly, or fight over who gets to sit on it or when,” said zoo director Ted Fox. , in a statement.
The egg of the Poquita and Vente penguins, which had already damaged eggs, was then delivered to Elmer and Lima on December 23 and on January 1 the chick was born.
At the first health check, when the calf was five days old, it weighed 226 grams. He continues to be looked after by Elmer and Lima, who are doing a great job. And once they have experience doing this and continue to do it well, they will be considered for hatching future eggs.
Ted Fox, Zoo Director
This is not the only example in the world. The cases of adoptive penguins are multiplying, as is the case of the Oceanário de Valencia, in Spain, with the female penguin couple Gentoo, Eletra and Viola; from the Berlin Zoo, with Skipper and Ping, a male pair of penguins, and Eduardo and Rio, a male pair of Magellanic penguins from the San Francisco Zoo.
Source: CNN Brasil
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