OVER TO YOU, PROFESSOR SINGER

Zoo defends bid to mate gay penguins (Kate Connolly, The Telegraph, February, 14th, 2005)

The director of a German zoo has defended her campaign to mate a group of homosexual male penguins with females, arguing that it is the only way to preserve a dying breed from extinction.

Heike Kück said that she had been inundated with criticism by the gay lobby after making public her plan.

"We're simply trying to help save a threatened species," she said of the Humboldt penguin, a bird whose homosexual tendencies are well known to zoologists.

Six penguins at Bremerhaven Zoo in north-west Germany provoked excitement across the world when, in the absence of any females, they were discovered wandering around in pairs, trying to mate with each other and sitting on stones as if they were eggs.

Gay groups reacted with outrage when four female penguins were flown in from Sweden to allow keepers to see if they had any influence on the homosexual pairings.

Since then gay activists from as far afield as Australia have been protesting at the zoo's attempts to "cure" the penguins of their homosexuality. The zoo has been bombarded with threatening letters and telephone calls.

The World Wildlife Fund has called a general emergency meeting and failed to return any phone calls.