Homosexualy is blogil, suggts gay sheep study | New Scientist

Contents:

• FARMER SUTRA! ARE GAY RAMS REALLY A PROBLEM THE SHEEP DTRY?
• HOMOSEXUALY IS BLOGIL, SUGGTS GAY SHEEP STUDY
• GAY ANIMALS: ALTERNATE LIFTYL THE WILD
• FARMERS SAY EXPERT'S CLAIM THAT ONE TWELVE SHEEP IS GAY IS 'NONSENSE'
• OF GAY SHEEP, MORN SCIENCE AND BAD PUBLICY
• THE GAY WILD KGDOM
• CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?
• BORN GAY? HOW BLOGY MAY DRIVE ORIENTATN
• THE 8 CUTT ANIMALS THAT LIKE TO GO GAY
• 11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL

FARMER SUTRA! ARE GAY RAMS REALLY A PROBLEM THE SHEEP DTRY?

“Unfortunately, he’ll have to go to the food cha, ” said Dewi Jon, the chief executive of the sheep-breedg pany Innovis, speakg on a Channel 4 documentary, My Gay Dog and Other Animals, which will be broadst on Thursday. Campaigners raised money to send him to a sanctuary stead (although emerged the followg year that he may not be “gay” after all, “judgg by what he was tryg to do the other day wh one of the ws, ” said his new owner) preferenc sheep have been studied by Charl Roselli, a profsor of physlogy and pharmalogy at the Oregon Health & Science Universy, whose work suggts their sexualy is termed by blogy and has said that the rearch – prevly reported by the webse Slate unr the headle “Brokeback Mutton” – may “allow better selectn of rams for breedg and as a nsequence may be enomilly important to the sheep dtry”.

HOMOSEXUALY IS BLOGIL, SUGGTS GAY SHEEP STUDY

A study of gay sheep appears to nfirm the ntroversial suggtn that there is a blogil basis for sexual preference. The differenc are almost intil to those intified by the nroscientist Simon LeVay his studi of the bras of gay men. Sheep are particularly tertg, he says, bee bis humans, they are the only animal where the mal may naturally exprs exclively gay sexual preferenc.

But Lark suggts there may also be the fluence of gen at work, at least predisposg the animals to homosexualy. This is bee selective breedg seems to have been rponsible for the high proportn of gay sheep pared wh other animals. Male-only bachelor herds ually nta five to 50 rams at one time, and they sometim engage homosexual activy, acrdg to ADW.

GAY ANIMALS: ALTERNATE LIFTYL THE WILD

(Image cred: © Chris Johnson – earthOCEAN)Homosexualy has been documented more than 450 speci of vertebrat signalg that sexual preference is blogilly termed animals.

)Homosexualy has been documented almost 500 speci of animals, signalg that sexual preference is pretermed. They pulate equently, scream out light while dog so, and often engage homosexual activi. Mal also take to homosexual play but tend to leave their partner soon after, makg what we ll the human world a one night stand.

(Image cred: © Chris Johnson – earthOCEAN)Homosexual activy occurs wh about the same equency as heterosexual play amongst the mare mammals. Male bottlenose dolphs are generally bisexual, but they go through perds of beg exclively homosexual. The homosexual activi of the mammals clu oral sex durg which time one dolph stimulat the other wh s snout.

FARMERS SAY EXPERT'S CLAIM THAT ONE TWELVE SHEEP IS GAY IS 'NONSENSE'

[See more pictur of dolphs]BisonHomosexual mountg between mal tends to be more mon than heterosexual female-male pulatn among Amerin bison, pecially bee femal only mate wh the bulls about once a year. Homosexual mountg enpass almost 9 percent of all sexual activi wh the hoofed mammals the wild. (Image cred: Geoff Shter)Splashg around the water is brought to a pletely new level gray whal, where homosexual teractns are que mon.

(Image cred: worldswildlifewonrs | Shutterstock)Mal of this stunng perchg bird light homosexualy. Almost 40 percent of the male populatn engag a form of homosexual activy and a small percentage don't ever pulate wh femal.

OF GAY SHEEP, MORN SCIENCE AND BAD PUBLICY

Sign up for a full digt of all the bt opns of the week our Voic Dispatch emailSign up to our ee weekly Voic newsletterClaims that one 12 sheep is gay, ma a documentary due to be shown later this week, have been brand "nonsense" by an dtry profsor Charl Roselli, who featur new Channel 4 programme My Gay Dog and Other Animals, believ that the average flock of sheep around 8 per cent are the documentary, which airs on Thursday at 9pm, a ram is shown a pen surround by 30 ew season – but apparently has no tert any of them.

Dewi Jon, a mercial breer who is head of sheep breedg firm Innovis, says homosexual rams have to be sent to the slghterhoe. A famo se 2015 volved Benjy the “gay” bull om County Mayo, who was gog to be sent the slghterhoe after failg to mate wh any of his owner’s ws. Campaigners tervened and raised money for Benjy to move to a sanctuary stead where he uld “live out his natural life peace and digny”, although later turned out that Benjy wasn’t “gay” after all.

“Judgg by what he was tryg to do the other day wh one of the ws… he isn’t gay, ” the sanctuary’s founr Wendy Valente said at the time.

THE GAY WILD KGDOM

The sheep rearchers—Charl Roselli of Oregon Health and Science Universy and Fred Stormshak of Oregon State Universy—are vtigatg blogil factors homosexualy. In fact, he has said that studi suggtg a blogil basis for homosexualy tend to enurage tolerance. He do this not to promote homosexualy but to fd out whether the mechanism he’s ttg—privatn of trogen durg fetal velopment—acunts for homosexualy.

PETA has ma hay of a 2000 paper which Stormshak posed that gay rams “may not be exposed to the same levels” of trogen as straight rams. ” And that’s what the study exam: All the rams, not jt the gay on, are strated and given trogen. For stance, most people who regard homosexualy as a s assume you n regulate your sexual orientatn.

What if science mak possible to chemilly rce the prevalence of homosexualy whout opprsg anyone?

CAN ANIMALS BE GAY?

Lookg back at the wretched history of hormone therapy for homosexualy, ’s easy to say, “Never aga. If you don’t regard the human fet as a person—precisely bee s bra hasn’t fully formed—n you really say was ever gay? You might fd yourself the odd posn of pleadg for acceptance of homosexualy as a natural ndn while at the same time nouncg Catholic bishops who plead for acceptance of fertily as a natural ndn.

The sheep vtigators have already intified bra markers that roughly rrelate wh homosexualy. But if doctors learn to spot emergg gay bras and are unable to alter them, parents who are termed not to raise gay children will do what’s already done to female fet much of the world: abort them.

But sce last fall, when People for the Ethil Treatment of Animals started a mpaign agast the rearch, has drawn a torrent of outrage om animal rights activists, gay advot and ordary cizens around the world — all of based, Dr.

BORN GAY? HOW BLOGY MAY DRIVE ORIENTATN

The story of the gay sheep beme a textbook example of the distortn and vuperatn that n rult when science meets the global news cycle.

The news media storm reached s zenh last month, when The Sunday Tim London published an article unr the headle “Science Told: Hands Off Gay Sheep. Roselli had worked succsfully to “cure” homosexual rams wh hormone treatments, and add that “crics fear” that the rearch “uld pave the way for breedg out homosexualy humans.

THE 8 CUTT ANIMALS THAT LIKE TO GO GAY

”Marta Navratilova, the tennis star who is both openly gay and a PETA ally, wrote an open letter that the rearch “n only be surmised as an attempt to velop a prenatal treatment” for sexual ntroversy spilled to the blog world, wh attacks on Dr. Gala, who asked that he be intified as openly gay, ced the news release for a 2004 paper the journal Endocrology that showed differenc bra stcture between homosexual and heterosexual sheep. ” The prospect of parents’ eventually beg able to choose not to have children who would bee gay is a real ncern for the future, Dr.

11 ANIMAL SPECI THAT PROVE BEG GAY IS NATURAL

But he add, “This ncern is bt addrsed by tryg to change public perceptns of homosexualy rather than stop basic science on sexualy. Jt up the road om Brokeback Mounta, closeted away their own private Idaho, the gay sheep were gettg on.

After all, surveys show that if you thk homosexualy is blogilly termed, you’re ls likely to be anti-gay. If you figure out how to make sheep gay, you n probably figure out how to make them straight. Gay rams are “a stly problem for sheep producers bee breedg rams are worth $300 to $500 each, ” Stormshak told OSU’s agricultural newsletter a ago.

” OSU print Ed Ray says the rearch “may fe blogil tts that n be ed to intify” gay or asexual rams, “th elimatg their e for general breedg purpos. In a recent survey, 73 percent of Amerins said they’d be upset to learn that their child was gay. Roselli offers lots of evince that human homosexualy is lked to blogil ndns, some of them geic.