“We had a good run, didn’t we? Trying forever to hatch those stones and finally getting that real egg? Remember? But sometimes these things happen. It’s not you, really. It’s me.”
“Oh, now you’re straight? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
That’s an excerpt of the conversation had recently by Harry and Pepper, the San Francisco Zoo’s long-term gay penguin couple. Yeah, Harry dumped Pepper. For a girl:
Harry would gather grass and bring it home to Pepper, who would arrange it tidily in their burrow. Single females would come around, but both birds never seemed interested.
Last year, the pair was allowed to incubate and hatch an egg another penguin had laid. “Of all of the parents that year, they were the best,” [their zookeeper] said. “They took very good care of their chick. He ended up being the largest chick on the island.”
Enter the recently widowed Linda, who has long had a reputation of sorts, according to Brown . . . one day, Harry and Linda approached Pepper’s pen and confronted Pepper. Harry began attacking Pepper violently and the three ultimately had to be separated, Brown said.
Harry and Linda successfully nested this year.
Poor Pepper.
13. July 2009 at 4:42 pm
linda = homewrecker