What makes a parent-a penquin’s perspective

I love this news story.  It shows that parents aren’t necessarily defined by biology.

GERMAN ZOO: GAY PENGUIN PAIR RAISING CHICK — BERLIN — A German zoo says a pair of gay male penguins are raising a chick from an egg abandoned by its parents.

Bremerhaven zoo veterinarian Joachim Schoene says the egg was placed in the male penguins’ nest after its parents rejected it in late April. The males incubated it for some 30 days before it hatched and have continued to care for it. The chick’s gender is not yet known.

Schoene said the male birds, named Z and Vielpunkt, are one of three same-sex pairs among the zoo’s 20 Humboldt penguins that have attempted to mate.

Homosexual behavior has been documented in many animal species.

The zoo said in a statement on its Web site Thursday that “sex and coupling in our world don’t always have something to do with reproduction.”

(And as a post script, I was surfing one of the German news sites, which I often do to get my international news, I found the original video-in German about the penguins, so if you are interested in seeing the love that these male penguins have for each other, please be sure to watch this video.)

Recycling

We’re finally getting bins to put our recycling in, and I’m SOOOOO excited!  We’ve had to use our own small buckets to put the recycling out every other week in.  I recycle as much as is allowed and most times I have at least 2 big buckets full of plastic, paper and cans to be recycled.  Now we’ll have a push cart with a lid for our trash (same as we do now) and a push cart with a different color lid to throw all our recyclables in.  We were forwarded this really neat video about how they actually recycle things.  I want to share this, because I think it’s important that we ALL recycle as much as possible.   http://www.tbovideo.com/wmavon.htm