Resituating Nature: New Horizons for a Pesky Noun

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2016

Publisher

Center for Humans & Nature

Abstract

Two chinstrap penguins, Roy and Silo, longtime residents of the Central Park Zoo, have their own page on Wikipedia. They have distinguished themselves as the avian world’s most famous same-sex couple, not only having pair-bonded as far back as 1999, but having subsequently incubated an egg and raised a chick named Tango. As a birder whose optics tend to focus west of the continental divide, I hesitate to make inferences about any behavior that originates in midtown Manhattan. However, I could not help but notice the sub-head to an article about Roy and Silo that appears on the Scientific American website. It reads, “Homosexual behavior is common in nature, and it plays an important role in survival.”[1]

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