Will these Piglets become tiger cubs or pork chops?
Welcome back!
Tiger Mama with her Piglets
I got the following email from my mother:
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.
Tiger Mama with her baby pig
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.
Tiger Mama caring for her piglets
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??
After looking deeper into this story, I learned that the tiger mama and her piglets are from Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand. Where “creating successful relationships with animals of different species” is something of a guiding principle.
The costumes are strictly for show, by the way. The mother tiger pictured above, was herself nursed by a pig in infancy and apparently regards the other species as family, not prey.
So, as my mother would say, “Why can’t the rest of the world get along?” Can we learn world peace form the tiger and her piglets?
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
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Giovanna, Your mother is right. Why can not the world get along. If animals can do it why can we not do the same. Thank you for the story.
Dan and Deanna “Marketing Unscrambled”
Hi Deanna
We can all learn so much from the amimals.
Thanks for you comment and support.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Giovanna
What a heart warming story? As humans we under estimate animals! The tiger was depressed due to the loss of the cubs…it seems like animals have emotions also.
Thanks for the great story and video!
Pete Baca
The Car Enthusiast Online
Hi Giovanna. This is great! And so neat that this mother tiger herself was nursed by a pig. Imagine that!
Who ever said we are more evolved than animals may be wrong. I love this you always have the best stories and I’m passing this one on!
Off to Ministry of Sound tonight, looking forward to the night, but not the trip there as it will take me all of 3 hours
Hi Gio .. great little story of the porkers and the tiger .. and may they all live happily ever after.
All the best Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters
Hi Pete
I am glad you enjoyed this story.
Thank you for your comment and sharing your thought.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Davina
Is it amazing!? I think the Mama tiger have a special place in her heart for pigs.
Thank you for your comment and joining the conversation.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Tess
I think animals are great, because they have no judgement on others.
Thanks for passing the story along. Please feel free to share the story.
Thank you for your comment and support.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Hi Hilary
The piglets story are so cute and such a great example of world peace.
Thank you for your comment and sharing your thought.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
That is a cute story.
Reasons we cannot all get along as tigers and piggies? For one, nobody delivers free food to us every day, while we lay about in a cage. Even the kindest tiger needs something to eat.
Hi Chris
I understand what you are saying.
Thanks for your comment and sharing your thoughts.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
Amusing pictures, heartwarming story, unfortunately the facts of the story are not quite true according to: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_tiger_and_piglets.htm
“The photos above are genuine, but there is more to this story than meets the eye.
To begin with, the snapshots were taken at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand (near Bangkok), not some nameless zoo in California. Moreover, it would appear that the sad tale of the tigress falling into a deep depression after losing a litter of cubs was fabricated, as was the claim that the piglets were substituted for the deceased cubs by zookeepers in order to console the “mourning mother.”
As it happens, this sort of intermingling of species is not at all unusual at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, where “creating successful relationships with animals of different species” is something of a guiding principle. The facility, more accurately described as part zoo and part circus, boasts offbeat attractions like basketball-playing elephants, “lady crocodile wrestlers,” and a petting zoo where customers can bottle-feed baby tigers with their own bare hands. Visitors have reported seeing tigers, pigs, and dogs all housed together within the same enclosure, with sows nursing tiger cubs and tigresses nursing piglets “adorned in tiger-print costumes.”
The costumes are strictly for show, by the way. The mother tiger pictured above, who has been photographed on other occasions suckling piglets au naturel, was herself nursed by a pig in infancy and apparently regards the other species as family, not prey.