Same-Sex Flamingo Couple Raises Chick in English Zoo

 Photo by VanilinKa/shutterstock.com

A sex-same Chilean flamingo couple made international headlines this week for their parenting skills.

The two males, Arthur and Curtis, mark a milestone for the Paignton Zoo. The southwest England zoo has been home to Chilean flamingos since 2018, but this is its first same-sex couple to successfully hatch an egg and raise a chick.

It’s unclear exactly how this happened. The best guess that Pete Smallbones, the curator of birds at Paignton, could give was abandonment.

“It’s likely that this egg became available - unprotected, kind of just left (in a nest) - and then they’ve taken the opportunity,” Smallbones said to Taylor Nicioli of CNN.

It’s not unheard of for flamingos to have same-sex relationships. Penguins, ostriches, ravens, and so many other birds have been found to form homosexual bonds - including the fabulous fowl. For this reason, Smallbones said his team at the zoo isn’t shocked by Arthur and Curtis.

“Being in a same-sex pair is a relatively common occurrence in captive flamingos, because of small flock sizes,” Paul Rose, a biologist and senior lecturer on animal behavior at the University of Exeter, told CNN. “Actually hatching an egg is more unusual. These two male flamingos were likely very keen to nest but could not attract a female partner, and so the same urge to nest brought them together.”

There have been several other instances of same-sex flamingo couples hatching and raising a baby, like in 2021 at Bedfordshire, England’s Whipsnade Zoo. Sometimes, these couples take over eggs left behind by neglectful parents. Other times, they intentionally disrupt other pairings in an attempt to take the egg for themselves - most notably, Carlos and Fernando the flamingos at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire, England, were caught stealing. But, the two did such a good job hatching and raising the eggs that the wildlife reserve gave them an abandoned egg in 2007.

Happy Pride to the same-sex flamingo pair who are dads to a baby flamingo at Zoo Atlanta 🏳️‍🌈 🦩 🦩 pic.twitter.com/82XwpJTvnN

— Keola 🥥 🌴 (@MrKeola) June 19, 2023

But it’s all about Arthur, Curtis, and their lovely little chick right now. The baby is yet to be named, but it is about one month old and seemingly well, according to Smallbones. It’s exhibiting all the normal behaviors of a freshly-minted flamingo and still crawls back to Arthur and Curtis when dinner time beckons.

Something must be going right, and the story is indicative of the strong urge to parent deep within flamingos. Single parenting isn’t too common among flamingos, so with apparently no other option left, the two males chose teamwork to make the dream work.

“You can’t do it on your own,” Cornell Lab of Ornithology ornithologist Kevin McGowan said to CNN. “So, these birds have figured out how to make it work. It’s in their instincts to want to take care of an egg, however the circumstances. There is a grand desire to have kids, and these two guys figured out how to do it.”

Rose agreed that this instance is proof of how hardwired living things are to usher in new generations. 

“This demonstrates how resourceful animals can be when they are driven to do something at a specific time of the year or season,” he explained.

Though most species of flamingos are seeing stable populations, Chilean flamingos are having a rougher go. Their IUCN Conservation Status is “Near Threatened,” with egg harvesting, mining, and tourism all impacting their habitats and numbers. With that in mind, Arthur and Curtis’s nurturing of their chick means that much more.

Their hatchling is one of four newborn flamingos at Paignton Zoo. Fans have been able to keep up with the zoo’s flamingo flirtations this summer through Paignton’s social media accounts, which have hosted “Love Lagoon,” a play on “Love Island,” the popular romantic reality show. The concept has helped bring attention to the work that the zoo is doing, plus informed the public on the intricacies of Chilean flamingo life.

“(We’re) pleased at the success of this year’s breeding program so far,” Smallbones told the BBC. “It’s a testament to the skill and hard work put in by the bird team, and we are hopeful that we may see more eggs hatch over the coming days and weeks.”