Drama on Ice!

Remember that really bitchy girl in high school that was always trying to steal everyone’s boyfriend?

Or that desperate girl in college that was always trying to turn gay men straight?

And that conniving, back-stabbing slut that wants to break up your marriage, and not only steal away your man, but your baby, too?

Sounds like a bad soap opera, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s Linda; the home wrecker...of the penguin world.

You may remember the touching story of Harry and Pepper, the male Magellanic penguins that paired up a few years ago at the San Francisco Zoo. Single females came calling at the burrow they shared, but neither were interested. The two even incubated and hatched an orphaned egg in the nest they shared. They seemed like any other penguin couple, except, you know, gay.

That was until Linda broke them up. According to zookeeper Anthony Brown, Linda has a bit of a reputation. She dumped her own partner a few years back and took up with another penguin just hours after his partner had died. Girl moves fast! Then that penguin died, and within weeks she was seen entertaining Harry in her burrow. Hussy! As if that wasn't bad enough, the two confronted Pepper and violence ensued, forcing all three to be separated. This actually is a soap opera!

The initial story of Harry and Pepper actually started a lot of dialogue on homosexuality: hey, if it’s natural and normal in the animal world, maybe it’s natural and normal in the human world, right? Except now we're not sure what this is. Is Harry gay? Bi? Was the nature of his relationship with Pepper really analogous to heterosexual penguin relationships? We're not zoologists so we can't claim to know, but it gets you thinking. Is Harry closeting himself with Linda? Is she blackmailing him? Or maybe she's doing all this to get back at Pepper for something?

Anthropomorphizing these animals is easy, especially with a scheming harpy like somebody Aaron Spelling dreamed up thrown into the mix. But when it comes to sex, and sexual relationships, well...there's a reason we humans call it "the birds and the bees." Sex is pretty animalistic, and sexual desire is a primal force for people and animals alike, so it seems logical that if there are gay people, there are gay animals. And if there are gay animals, why not bi ones? And why not homewrecking animals, too? Maybe we're not assigning human traits to animals when we process these relationships...maybe we're really recognizing the roots of our own behavior?

As for our penguin love triangle, Pepper was recently brought back to the penguin exhibit, where he's taken up his old spot, while Harry and Linda are still together in her nest. Things are calm now, but everyone's waiting to see what happens next. Molting season is coming up later this month, and Brown says couples often "shaken up" at that time. "It'll be interesting to see if Harry spends any of that time with Pepper," he said. "Well have to wait and see."

What's a soap opera without a cliffhanger?