Mother of the Year

I have always been intrigued by stories of interspecies adoption. They certainly serve as a beautiful illustration that, from a universal level, a parent's love is much broader than just giving birth, and that a child doesn’t have to be a “perfect match" to be perfectly loved. Here is a sweet story that appeared my inbox recently. Enjoy!

MOTHER OF THE YEAR
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.

After recovering from the delivery the mother tiger 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 only orphans that could be found quickly were a litter of weaner pigs. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. The zookeepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become tiger cubs or pork chops???

Take a look...you won't believe your eyes!