Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born pre-maturely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after
birth. The mother tiger, after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine.
The veterinarians felt that the loss of Her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression.The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.
After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce
to the mourning mother.
The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on
the care of a different species. The only "orphans" that could be found quickly, were a litter of wiener pigs.
3 comments:
Oh ... my ... god! That has to be one of the sadest/sweetest things I've ever seen. Where do you get this stuff, Anne?
That mothering instinct is pretty strong, huh?
Awwww... That is so cute. The tiger outfits are fake, right? Because we used to ranch, and when one cow rejected a calf and another lost one, somebody (not me) would skin the dead calf and apply the skin to the orphan. This spring we had a mare who had her own foal take on another. We don't know whether she stole him--she's a big, bossy mare--or adopted him after a rejection. There's a picture on my web site.
pigs in tiger suits? Amazing!
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