Amorous Ostriches

From my friend Greg Wilson; source unknown:

British poultry farmers trying to raise ostriches in the 1990s called in scientists to find out why their birds were failing to breed. Careful observations confirmed the birds were courting the farm workers rather than each other, Norma Bubier of Pro-Natura UK and colleagues reported in a seminal paper in British Poultry Science (vol 39, p 477), entitled “Courtship behavior of ostriches toward humans under farming conditions in Britain”.

The research was no laughing matter for the scientists or the farmers. Ostriches are big. “You wouldn’t want to be in a pen with an amorous ostrich, because if it tried to climb on top of you, you’d be in serious trouble,” says Charles Paxton of the University of St. Andrews. Most of the birds had been hand-raised by humans, and Paxton suspects they identified with people when they went looking for mates. However, the British ostrich industry collapsed before he could investigate further.