The gay penguins were reluctant to return the child (Odense Zoo/youtube)

A gay penguin couple has kidnapped a baby from two straight penguins who they decided were doing a bad job.

After the child’s mother went for a bath and its father walked away, a gay couple in the penguin enclosure at Odense Zoo in Denmark took the chick for themselves, seemingly thinking it had been abandoned and needed help.

Sandie Hedegård Munck, an animal keeper at the zoo, told Danish publication DR that the moment she saw the enclosure, she “could see that there was something wrong.”

“The only parent couple was gone and the kid had simply been kidnapped. There were a couple of homosexual males who had snatched the kid and stood with it,” she added.

African penguins (EWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty)

Munck explained what had probably happened, saying: “I think the female has been out to get her bath, so then it was the male’s turn to care for the kid.

“He may have left, leading the couple to think: ‘That’s a pity, we’re snapping.'”

She added that she expected the straight parents to come over and get their child back, but their response to the situation was muted.

The father walked around as if he had never had a kid, while the mother did some searching, but only half-heartedly, recalled Munck.

“I know that the female is very caring for the kid, and she is also very aggressive to us animal lovers if we get too close to the kid,” she continued, “so I could not have imagined she would leave it.”

“The male is a bit more relaxed and might find it hard to search too much,” said Munck.

The chick was returned to its biological parents, a decision which the gay couple did not take well, struggling and fighting to reclaim the chick.

But don’t fear — there’s good news in store for the gay lovebirds.

Munck said that she has given them an abandoned egg, so they will be fathers after all.

This isn’t the first time a gay penguin couple at Odense Zoo has taken on a child, after two Emperor penguins adopted an egg in 2012 after they proved they could care for a fake egg.

The news from Denmark follows another case in which elderly lesbian penguin couple Thelma and Louise were given a chick to raise together at Kelly Tarlton’s Sea Life Aquarium, in New Zealand.

LGBT animals

Last year, two male lions shocked visitors to the UK’s Yorkshire Wildlife Park by engaging in a mating display as a lioness looked on from just a few feet away.

Viewers in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve were also surprised by a couple of lions engaging in same-sex relations, with the two big cats even nuzzling affectionately after it was over.

A polar bear called Szenja died last year, just weeks after her same-sex partner of 20 years was transferred to a different zoo.

The bear, who was left alone at SeaWorld San Diego after her companion Snowflake was moved to Pittsburgh Zoo, died of a broken heart, animals rights charity Peta claimed.