Fairy Penguins Renamed at Sea World

Fairy penguins are those cute little guys the Mormon women of Australia and New Zealand have been knitting sweaters for (see that story here).

On April 16, the Australian publication, The Sunday Mail, reported that some theme parks have decided to change the name of the smallest species of penguin.

Managers at Sea World, on the Gold Coast, are now calling the species "little penguins" in case associations with the word "fairy" offend visitors to the park.

"We didn't have any complaints about the name of the penguins, but someone thought they could be seen as offensive so we decided to change it to little penguin instead," a Sea World spokeswoman said. "We just didn't want to upset the gay community. The new name is more politically correct."

No complaints, but "someone thought" it might offend. And that's enough of a reason to change the name of a species? Is Sea World going to change the name of Killer Whales to Big Black-And-White Whale, because somebody thinks murder victims' families might be offended by "killer"?

There are ten US states that have a city named Bowling Green. Should those cities all be renamed to Bowling Lawn, because someone might see them as an endorsement of the Green Party? Where would it stop?

However, Queensland's gay community and other zoos which keep fairy penguins described the name change as ridiculous and unnecessary.

Kamahl Fox, chairman of gay support group the Gold Coast Breakers, said: "I wouldn't be upset by fairy penguins at all.

"I don't think our community is that sensitive about those things. If the penguins were called poofter (is that a bad word?) penguins or something more direct then it might be a problem, but I don't see the name fairy penguin as a mickey-take at all."

I'm not sure I completely understand what Fox said, but it's good to see that his group has a whole lot more sense than Sea World does. Let's hope the managers at this Sea World get shamed enough by the publicity to give the fairy penguins their name back.