A motherly instinct…
In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of
triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to
complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely
and
due to their tiny size, 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. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the
piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother
tiger.
