Zookeepers in Toronto have walked unexpectedly into an argument over gay rights, after deciding to separate two apparently gay African penguins named Buddy and Pedro. The two male birds have been courting the way males and females do, grooming each other and swimming together. They show no interest in the lovesick females following them around. Zoo officials, noting that the species is endangered, insist on splitting up the the lovebirds in the hopes they'll take up with lady penguins and pass on their genes. Should the zookeepers let the gay penguins be?
This is unfair and homophobic: These "gay hating zookeepers" are the worst, says Brian Moylan at Gawker. "Buddy and his Latin lover Pedro" came to Toronto from Toledo, Ohio, "and they were already a couple." Let them stay together — "they probably wouldn't have sex with a woman if they were the last penguins on Earth anyway."
"Don't break up the gay penguins!"
Read more here ...
Showing posts with label homosexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homosexuality. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Friday, December 3, 2010
Mercury 'turns' wetland birds such as ibises homosexual
Mercury affects the behaviour of white ibises by "turning them homosexual", with higher doses resulting in males being more likely to pair with males.
Scientists in Florida and Sri Lanka studied the effect of mercury in the birds' diet. Their aim was to find out why it reduced the ibises' breeding.
Mercury pollution can come from burning coal and waste, and run-off from mines.
The report, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that wetland birds are particularly badly affected by it.
Although the researchers already knew that eating mercury-contaminated food could affect an animal's development, they were surprised by the "strange" results of this experiment.
"We knew mercury could depress their testosterone (male sex hormone) levels," explained Dr Peter Frederick from the University of Florida, who led the study. "But we didn't expect this."
The team fed white ibises on food pellets that contained concentrations of mercury equivalent to those measured in the shrimp and crayfish that make up the birds' wetland diet.
The higher the dose of mercury in their food pellets, the more likely a male bird was to pair with another male.
Dr Frederick and his colleagues say the study shows that mercury could dramatically reduce the breeding rates of birds and possibly of other wildlife.
The exact mechanism that causes this change in behaviour is not yet fully understood.
But mercury is known to disrupt hormonal signalling, so it could have a direct impact on the sexual behaviour that is mediated by those hormones.
Importantly, the males with the higher mercury doses performed far fewer courtship displays, so they were more likely to be "ignored" by females.
Chemical mimic
Wetland habitats, like the Florida Everglades that are home to these birds, are particularly vulnerable to mercury contamination.
Bacteria that live in the thick, oxygen-free sludge chemically alter the mercury, turning it into its most toxic form - methylated mercury.
And this chemical can act as a sort of biological impostor, mimicking hormones that act as the body's natural chemical signals.
Some of these signals are involved in reproductive behaviour - they may stimulate an animal to carry out a courtship display or motivate it to mate.
"We're seeing very large reproductive effects at very low concentrations [of mercury]," said Dr Frederick. "So we really need to be paying more attention to this."
'Goldilocks mixture'
When a wetland is warm all year round, like the Everglades, it is an ideal environment for this methylation process.
Scientists refer to these conditions as a "Goldilocks mixture".
Dr Frederick says that measures could be taken to clean up any sources of mercury where they are close to wetland habitats - for example by filtering or "scrubbing" the smoke from nearby coal-burning power plants.
Gary Heinz, a wildlife researcher from the US Geological Survey in Maryland, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC that mercury was "a serious problem in many aquatic environments".
"It cannot be broken down, only be moved about and transformed from one chemical form to another," he said.
"And any effect that might reduce the productivity of a species would likely be harmful in nature."
Dr Heinz said the next step would be to study the reproductive behaviour of mercury-contaminated animals in the wild.
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
Scientists in Florida and Sri Lanka studied the effect of mercury in the birds' diet. Their aim was to find out why it reduced the ibises' breeding.
Mercury pollution can come from burning coal and waste, and run-off from mines.
The report, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that wetland birds are particularly badly affected by it.
Although the researchers already knew that eating mercury-contaminated food could affect an animal's development, they were surprised by the "strange" results of this experiment.
"We knew mercury could depress their testosterone (male sex hormone) levels," explained Dr Peter Frederick from the University of Florida, who led the study. "But we didn't expect this."
The team fed white ibises on food pellets that contained concentrations of mercury equivalent to those measured in the shrimp and crayfish that make up the birds' wetland diet.
The higher the dose of mercury in their food pellets, the more likely a male bird was to pair with another male.
Dr Frederick and his colleagues say the study shows that mercury could dramatically reduce the breeding rates of birds and possibly of other wildlife.
The exact mechanism that causes this change in behaviour is not yet fully understood.
But mercury is known to disrupt hormonal signalling, so it could have a direct impact on the sexual behaviour that is mediated by those hormones.
Importantly, the males with the higher mercury doses performed far fewer courtship displays, so they were more likely to be "ignored" by females.
Chemical mimic
Wetland habitats, like the Florida Everglades that are home to these birds, are particularly vulnerable to mercury contamination.
Bacteria that live in the thick, oxygen-free sludge chemically alter the mercury, turning it into its most toxic form - methylated mercury.
And this chemical can act as a sort of biological impostor, mimicking hormones that act as the body's natural chemical signals.
Some of these signals are involved in reproductive behaviour - they may stimulate an animal to carry out a courtship display or motivate it to mate.
"We're seeing very large reproductive effects at very low concentrations [of mercury]," said Dr Frederick. "So we really need to be paying more attention to this."
'Goldilocks mixture'
When a wetland is warm all year round, like the Everglades, it is an ideal environment for this methylation process.
Scientists refer to these conditions as a "Goldilocks mixture".
Dr Frederick says that measures could be taken to clean up any sources of mercury where they are close to wetland habitats - for example by filtering or "scrubbing" the smoke from nearby coal-burning power plants.
Gary Heinz, a wildlife researcher from the US Geological Survey in Maryland, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC that mercury was "a serious problem in many aquatic environments".
"It cannot be broken down, only be moved about and transformed from one chemical form to another," he said.
"And any effect that might reduce the productivity of a species would likely be harmful in nature."
Dr Heinz said the next step would be to study the reproductive behaviour of mercury-contaminated animals in the wild.
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
Mercury 'turns' wetland birds such as ibises homosexual
Mercury affects the behaviour of white ibises by "turning them homosexual", with higher doses resulting in males being more likely to pair with males.
Scientists in Florida and Sri Lanka studied the effect of mercury in the birds' diet. Their aim was to find out why it reduced the ibises' breeding.
Mercury pollution can come from burning coal and waste, and run-off from mines.
The report, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that wetland birds are particularly badly affected by it.
Although the researchers already knew that eating mercury-contaminated food could affect an animal's development, they were surprised by the "strange" results of this experiment.
"We knew mercury could depress their testosterone (male sex hormone) levels," explained Dr Peter Frederick from the University of Florida, who led the study. "But we didn't expect this."
The team fed white ibises on food pellets that contained concentrations of mercury equivalent to those measured in the shrimp and crayfish that make up the birds' wetland diet.
The higher the dose of mercury in their food pellets, the more likely a male bird was to pair with another male.
Dr Frederick and his colleagues say the study shows that mercury could dramatically reduce the breeding rates of birds and possibly of other wildlife.
The exact mechanism that causes this change in behaviour is not yet fully understood.
But mercury is known to disrupt hormonal signalling, so it could have a direct impact on the sexual behaviour that is mediated by those hormones.
Importantly, the males with the higher mercury doses performed far fewer courtship displays, so they were more likely to be "ignored" by females.
Chemical mimic
Wetland habitats, like the Florida Everglades that are home to these birds, are particularly vulnerable to mercury contamination.
Bacteria that live in the thick, oxygen-free sludge chemically alter the mercury, turning it into its most toxic form - methylated mercury.
And this chemical can act as a sort of biological impostor, mimicking hormones that act as the body's natural chemical signals.
Some of these signals are involved in reproductive behaviour - they may stimulate an animal to carry out a courtship display or motivate it to mate.
"We're seeing very large reproductive effects at very low concentrations [of mercury]," said Dr Frederick. "So we really need to be paying more attention to this."
'Goldilocks mixture'
When a wetland is warm all year round, like the Everglades, it is an ideal environment for this methylation process.
Scientists refer to these conditions as a "Goldilocks mixture".
Dr Frederick says that measures could be taken to clean up any sources of mercury where they are close to wetland habitats - for example by filtering or "scrubbing" the smoke from nearby coal-burning power plants.
Gary Heinz, a wildlife researcher from the US Geological Survey in Maryland, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC that mercury was "a serious problem in many aquatic environments".
"It cannot be broken down, only be moved about and transformed from one chemical form to another," he said.
"And any effect that might reduce the productivity of a species would likely be harmful in nature."
Dr Heinz said the next step would be to study the reproductive behaviour of mercury-contaminated animals in the wild.
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
Scientists in Florida and Sri Lanka studied the effect of mercury in the birds' diet. Their aim was to find out why it reduced the ibises' breeding.
Mercury pollution can come from burning coal and waste, and run-off from mines.
The report, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that wetland birds are particularly badly affected by it.
Although the researchers already knew that eating mercury-contaminated food could affect an animal's development, they were surprised by the "strange" results of this experiment.
"We knew mercury could depress their testosterone (male sex hormone) levels," explained Dr Peter Frederick from the University of Florida, who led the study. "But we didn't expect this."
The team fed white ibises on food pellets that contained concentrations of mercury equivalent to those measured in the shrimp and crayfish that make up the birds' wetland diet.
The higher the dose of mercury in their food pellets, the more likely a male bird was to pair with another male.
Dr Frederick and his colleagues say the study shows that mercury could dramatically reduce the breeding rates of birds and possibly of other wildlife.
The exact mechanism that causes this change in behaviour is not yet fully understood.
But mercury is known to disrupt hormonal signalling, so it could have a direct impact on the sexual behaviour that is mediated by those hormones.
Importantly, the males with the higher mercury doses performed far fewer courtship displays, so they were more likely to be "ignored" by females.
Chemical mimic
Wetland habitats, like the Florida Everglades that are home to these birds, are particularly vulnerable to mercury contamination.
Bacteria that live in the thick, oxygen-free sludge chemically alter the mercury, turning it into its most toxic form - methylated mercury.
And this chemical can act as a sort of biological impostor, mimicking hormones that act as the body's natural chemical signals.
Some of these signals are involved in reproductive behaviour - they may stimulate an animal to carry out a courtship display or motivate it to mate.
"We're seeing very large reproductive effects at very low concentrations [of mercury]," said Dr Frederick. "So we really need to be paying more attention to this."
'Goldilocks mixture'
When a wetland is warm all year round, like the Everglades, it is an ideal environment for this methylation process.
Scientists refer to these conditions as a "Goldilocks mixture".
Dr Frederick says that measures could be taken to clean up any sources of mercury where they are close to wetland habitats - for example by filtering or "scrubbing" the smoke from nearby coal-burning power plants.
Gary Heinz, a wildlife researcher from the US Geological Survey in Maryland, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC that mercury was "a serious problem in many aquatic environments".
"It cannot be broken down, only be moved about and transformed from one chemical form to another," he said.
"And any effect that might reduce the productivity of a species would likely be harmful in nature."
Dr Heinz said the next step would be to study the reproductive behaviour of mercury-contaminated animals in the wild.
By Victoria Gill
Science and nature reporter, BBC News
Monday, April 26, 2010
Restaurant fined for 'gay' guide dog ban
Monday, April 26 2010, 12:47 BST
By Mayer Nissim, Entertainment Reporter
A restaurant in Australia has been banned after banning a blind man from entering the premises with a "gay" guide dog.
Ian Jolly, 57 of Woodville North, was barred from restaurant Thai Spice in May 2009, the Adelaide Sunday Mail reports.
Restaurant owners Hong Hoa Thi To and Anh Hoang Le gave a statement to an equal opportunity tribunal stating that they thought Jolly's partner Chris Lawrence said that "she wanted to bring a gay dog into the restaurant".
"The staff genuinely believed that Nudge was an ordinary pet dog which had been desexed to become a gay dog," the statement continued.
Despite the restaurant displaying a "guide dogs welcome" sign, Jolly and Lawrence were refused entry to the Grange eatery with the canine.
At the tribunal conciliation hearing the restaurant agreed to attend an equal opportunity course, issue Jolly a written apology and pay him the sum of AU$1,500 (£970) in compensation.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a216557/restaurant-fined-for-gay-guide-dog-ban.html
By Mayer Nissim, Entertainment Reporter
A restaurant in Australia has been banned after banning a blind man from entering the premises with a "gay" guide dog.
Ian Jolly, 57 of Woodville North, was barred from restaurant Thai Spice in May 2009, the Adelaide Sunday Mail reports.
Restaurant owners Hong Hoa Thi To and Anh Hoang Le gave a statement to an equal opportunity tribunal stating that they thought Jolly's partner Chris Lawrence said that "she wanted to bring a gay dog into the restaurant".
"The staff genuinely believed that Nudge was an ordinary pet dog which had been desexed to become a gay dog," the statement continued.
Despite the restaurant displaying a "guide dogs welcome" sign, Jolly and Lawrence were refused entry to the Grange eatery with the canine.
At the tribunal conciliation hearing the restaurant agreed to attend an equal opportunity course, issue Jolly a written apology and pay him the sum of AU$1,500 (£970) in compensation.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a216557/restaurant-fined-for-gay-guide-dog-ban.html
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Lesbian albatrosses to raise chick
RIGHT: There are about 140 royal albatrosses on the colony. This season 17 chicks have hatched from 17 fertile eggs, a rare 100 per cent success rate Photo: ALAMYTwo female royal albatrosses at a New Zealand breeding colony have successfully incubated a chick.
By Ben Leach
Published: 8:02AM GMT
03 Feb 2010
The father, one of several males at the Taiaroa Head Royal Albatross Centre on the South Island’s Otago Peninsula, appears to have disappeared, according to the centre managers.
"It's quite unusual in the albatross population here at Taiaroa Head to have two females mating together," Lyndon Perriman, the colony's head ranger, told Television New Zealand.
Taiaroa Head – the only mainland albatross breeding colony in the world – has recorded only two previous instances of females setting up a nest together in the past 70 years.
Sam Inder, the manager of the centre, said: "It's an unusual situation because we've had a triangle with one male and two females for the past couple of years, and obviously that hasn't been terribly conducive to getting on with a breeding programme.
“This year the male left the trio, but obviously not before he had mated with one of the females."
The male has not been seen since, and Mr Inder told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: "My personal view would be having to live with two women might be just a bit demanding."
Lyndon Perriman, a ranger with New Zealand's Department of Conservation, said that the royal albatross females would raise their chick exactly the same as any male-female pair would.
For the next six months the new parents will take turns to alternately guard and feed the chick, with one protecting it from predators while the other goes out to sea to forage for food several hundred kilometres away. They swap the roles every two days.
“They need to have a very strong bond, because when they are sitting on the eggs they can sit there for a week or 10 days waiting for the partner to come back, so they need to have a good partner to rely on,” Mr Perriman told The Times.
There are about 140 royal albatrosses on the colony with wingspans of nearly 10 feet. This season 17 chicks have hatched from 17 fertile eggs, a rare 100 per cent success rate.
Tourism Dunedin is now canvassing for a name for the chick.
It is not the only same-sex pairing within the animal world on the Otago Peninsula, just south of Dunedin. Currently, two male yellow-eyed penguins – an endangered species like the royal albatross – are incubating an egg.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7144393/Lesbian-albatrosses-to-raise-chick.html
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Lesbian albatrosses, boy-on-boy bat bugs...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/17/animal_research/
Lesbian albatrosses, boy-on-boy bat bugs...
Posted in Biology, 17th June 2009 10:31 GMT
Researchers have concluded that homosexual behaviour among animals is so impressively rife that it can "reshape their social dynamics and even change their DNA" - something which could have "evolutionary consequences" for species indulging in same-sex shenanigans.
Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk of the University of California write in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution: “The variety and ubiquity of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals is impressive - many thousands of instances of same-sex courtship, pair bonding and copulation have been observed in a wide range of species, including mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians, insects, molluscs and nematodes."
The pair attribute this behaviour to a number of factors. In the case of boy-on-boy fruit flies, it's simply because the chaps "are lacking a gene that enables them to discriminate between the sexes", according to Bailey.
Bailey continued: “But that is different from male bottlenose dolphins, who engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding, or female Laysan albatrosses that can remain pair-bonded for life and co-operatively rear young.”
Indeed, studies have shown that "a third of chick-raising pairs of Laysan albatrosses were found to be all female in one Hawaiian colony", as the Times puts it. They don't raise as many young as heterosexual couples, but girls who "shared parenting did much better than solitary
females". Bottlenose dolphin homosexuality, on the other hand, may appear to offer no practical advantage to the survival of the species, but "male-on-male mounting and genital contact appear to strengthen alliances and provide practice for later opposite-sex encounters".
For the dolphins, "around half of male sexual encounters are with other males". The bearded vulture, meanwhile, is not quite as promiscuous but a study demonstrated "as many as a quarter of mountings were male-to-male".*
Other species indulging in unnatural** sexual liaisons are bonobos (formerly called "pygmy chimpanzees"), who get their rocks off with "same-sex genital rubbing and even oral sex", while male bat bugs "pierce the bodies of other males with their penises and ejaculate into their blood, just as they do to females".
The upshot of all this is that gay animal behaviour may be an evolutionary driving force. Bailey elaborated: “Same-sex behaviour can have evolutionary consequences that are beginning to be considered. For example, male-male copulations in locusts can be costly for the mounted male, and this cost may increase selection pressure for males’ tendency to release a chemical which dissuades other males from mounting them."
The researchers conclude by warning that we shouldn't necessarily apply human sexual orientation labels to animals, despite the apparent behavioural similarities. They note: “It is impossible to know what animals ‘desire’; we can only observe what they do."
Lesbian albatrosses, boy-on-boy bat bugs...
Posted in Biology, 17th June 2009 10:31 GMT
Researchers have concluded that homosexual behaviour among animals is so impressively rife that it can "reshape their social dynamics and even change their DNA" - something which could have "evolutionary consequences" for species indulging in same-sex shenanigans.
Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk of the University of California write in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution: “The variety and ubiquity of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals is impressive - many thousands of instances of same-sex courtship, pair bonding and copulation have been observed in a wide range of species, including mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians, insects, molluscs and nematodes."
The pair attribute this behaviour to a number of factors. In the case of boy-on-boy fruit flies, it's simply because the chaps "are lacking a gene that enables them to discriminate between the sexes", according to Bailey.
Bailey continued: “But that is different from male bottlenose dolphins, who engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding, or female Laysan albatrosses that can remain pair-bonded for life and co-operatively rear young.”
Indeed, studies have shown that "a third of chick-raising pairs of Laysan albatrosses were found to be all female in one Hawaiian colony", as the Times puts it. They don't raise as many young as heterosexual couples, but girls who "shared parenting did much better than solitary
females". Bottlenose dolphin homosexuality, on the other hand, may appear to offer no practical advantage to the survival of the species, but "male-on-male mounting and genital contact appear to strengthen alliances and provide practice for later opposite-sex encounters".
For the dolphins, "around half of male sexual encounters are with other males". The bearded vulture, meanwhile, is not quite as promiscuous but a study demonstrated "as many as a quarter of mountings were male-to-male".*
Other species indulging in unnatural** sexual liaisons are bonobos (formerly called "pygmy chimpanzees"), who get their rocks off with "same-sex genital rubbing and even oral sex", while male bat bugs "pierce the bodies of other males with their penises and ejaculate into their blood, just as they do to females".
The upshot of all this is that gay animal behaviour may be an evolutionary driving force. Bailey elaborated: “Same-sex behaviour can have evolutionary consequences that are beginning to be considered. For example, male-male copulations in locusts can be costly for the mounted male, and this cost may increase selection pressure for males’ tendency to release a chemical which dissuades other males from mounting them."
The researchers conclude by warning that we shouldn't necessarily apply human sexual orientation labels to animals, despite the apparent behavioural similarities. They note: “It is impossible to know what animals ‘desire’; we can only observe what they do."
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