German zoo separates gay vulture couple
Enforced reorientation provokes 'right carrion'
Posted in Bootnotes, 23rd November 2010 15:25 GMT
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German gay groups have protested the enforced separation of a couple of homosexual vultures who'd happily set up nest in Münster's Allwetterzoo.
Griffon vultures Guido and Detlef had been together since March, gaily "grooming one another with tender sweeps of their savage beaks between rearranging the sticks that made up their nest", as the Times puts it (subscription required).
Zoo curator Dirk Wewers explained: “They always sat so closely together. They defended their nest from the other vultures. A suitable female was missing and in such a case vultures look for companionship from the next best thing, even if it is a male. Detlef looked for a bird of the opposite sex but settled with Guido.”
Cue transportation to the east for Guido, who now resides in a zoo in Ostrava, Czech Republic, where he's apparently showing little interest in the opposite sex.
Detlef, meanwhile, has been provided with a feathered temptress from the Czech Republic, who's assisting his reorientation, according to Wewers.
The Times notes that the two chaps are, at 14, perhaps a little too long in the beak to change their ways. ®
Bootnote
The Times describes the whole affair as a "right carrion", insisting that's how the tabloids would describe it if Thunderer hack Alan Hall hadn't rather agreeably got in there first.
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