Posts Tagged ‘surrogate mother’
Tiger Cubs Or Pork Chops?
UPDATE on Feb 3, go to SNOPES to read the real story, yeah they’re piglets being raised by a tigress, but only for “entertainment”, not because she was “depressed”…well the pictures ARE cute. Here’s the original (but not quite true) story:
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. Because of their small 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 become depressed. 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 done in a zoo environment before. Sometimes the mother of one species will take care of another species. The only orphans that could be found quickly were a litter of weanling piglets. 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? Take a look!
