It's not very often that email "forwards" are worth more than a quick glance, and then into the trash file, but I found this one entertaining, inspiring and interesting. The pictures are great!
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, 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 weanling 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?
Don't know if this is all true but it's entertaining all the same.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Tiger Striped Pigs?
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2 comments:
I like to check snopes.com to see if things that go around the internet are true. This one says the pictures are real, but the story is that they were taken at a zoo that provides carnival-like shows and entertainment in addition to the traditional zoo exhbits. One form of entertainment is to mix the young of one species with another. In the next exhibit there was apparently a sow nursing tiger cubs. I wonder if they put those snout masks on them to fool the sow. All the same, they are fascinating photos.
I really got a kick out of those photos - thanks for sharing!
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