A Mother’s Love
In
a zoo in
Unfortunately,
due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely 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 weaner
pigs. The zoo
keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin
and placed the babies around the mother
tiger. Would they become cubs or pork
chops??
