Same-sex penguin couple makes history at New York zoo after successfully hatching egg
Parenting isn’t always a waddle in the park for penguins.
When couples have challenges incubating eggs or not crushing them in the process, wildlife centers like the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York, turn to feathered foster parents like Elmer and Lima.
Elmer and Lima are a bit different from previous foster parents at the zoo, though. They’re Rosamond Gifford Zoo’s first same-sex Humboldt penguin foster couple and recently celebrated the hatching of their adopted chick, the zoo said.
The two male penguins became a pair last fall, according to the zoo. Together, the duo built a nest and established their own territory. Their nesting behavior made them viable candidates for foster parents, so the zoo decided to give them an egg.
According to the zoo’s Humboldt penguin program, staff will give foster parents eggs to take care of if the biological parents have tendencies to break fertilized eggs. Sometimes, eggs are cracked so badly the zoo staff will have to glue them back together.
“To give the eggs a better chance of hatching a chick, keepers may swap a dummy egg for the real one and give it to a more successful pair to incubate,” the zoo wrote in a release.
Foster couples had successfully reared chicks in previous years, but the program’s staff wasn’t sure how Elmer and Lima would do, since it was their first time.
“Some pairs, when given a dummy egg, will sit on the nest but leave the egg to the side and not incubate it correctly, or they’ll fight for who is going to sit on it when,” Zoo Director Ted Fox said. “That’s how we evaluate who will be good foster parents — and Elmer and Lima were exemplary in every aspect of egg care.”
Elmer and Lima incubated the egg after it was laid by another couple in the program on Dec. 23. The biological couple was offered a dummy egg instead. After the same-sex couple successfully incubated it, the egg hatched on Jan. 1. Since the egg hatched, Elmer and Lima have been warming and feeding the chick, the zoo said.
If the two male penguins continue to parent well, their first adopted chick might not be their last, Fox said.
“(The chick) continues to be brooded and cared for by both Elmer and Lima, who are doing a great job,” Fox said. “And once they have experience doing this and continue to do it well, they will be considered to foster future eggs.”
Wildlife programs and zoos globally have seen instances of same-sex couples successfully hatching chicks, including the female Gentoo penguin couple Electra and Viola from Oceanogràfic València aquarium in Spain in 2020 and the male King penguin couple Skipper and Ping at the Berlin Zoo in 2019.
The instances of same-sex penguin couples successfully fostering eggs indicate that “the idea of ’family’ is not species specific,” Fox said in the release about Elmer and Lima.
According to the organization Oceania, the Humboldt penguin is vulnerable to extinction, threatened by over fishing and climate change. The penguins form strong bonds and will stay with the same partner for life, the organization says. Humboldt penguins are named after the Humboldt Current, which was named after German Explorer Alexander von Humboldt.
The Rosamond Gifford Zoo said it has collaborated with the Species Survival Plan for the Humboldt penguin since 2005 and has hatched more than 55 penguin chicks.
“Elmer and Lima’s success at fostering is one more story that our zoo can share to help people of all ages and backgrounds relate to animals,” Fox said.
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 1:01 PM with the headline "Same-sex penguin couple makes history at New York zoo after successfully hatching egg."
