Surrogate Mom

I just got this on an email, and thought it was so sweet.

READ THE STORY FIRST.
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 pre-maturely 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
wiener pigs. The zookeepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and
placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork???
Take a look ... you won't believe your eyes!!!!!

WOW! That is so cool.

Awww,that's adorable,a wonderful story,except for the tigress losing her babies:love:

Cute piggies, poor tiger...:(

Cute:love: One of my friends was telling me about that yesterday...

Nice story, but highly suspicious. The story is written like a newspaper article with a few critical differences.
1. No dateline so we can check the source newspaper.
2. No name for the zoo in California.
3. No names for anyone in the story. The article refers to "the veterinarians", "the doctors", etc.
4. None of the piglets is nursing, in fact the tiger does not even appear to have nipples.
5. I did a search on the internet for this story and found the exact same story, word for word, on several sites, but no supporting documentation. No follow up.

Believe if you want, but I think it is BOGUS.

The pics are real, but the true story not nearly so charming.:sad:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/tigerpig.asp

Wow, that's depressing. :(

That's really upsetting.http://bestsmileys.com/sad/9.gif

I did not finish reading,I can just imagine what was to come,reading just a few sentences..especially since this is happening in Thailand:sad:

The link isn't working for me: can someone please tell me what the story really is?

I did find this link: Link (http://www.animalliberationfront.com/News/AnimalPhotos/Animals_1-10/Tiger_piglets.htm) and I don't understand why this is so horrible? Not sure what to believe.


Melissa

I can't get the story either?
I'm sorry, I thought it was cute, I didn't know there was a sinister story involved (I guess I'm glad the link doesn't work, I don't want to start bawling here at work).
Again, I am sorry if I upset anyone, that wasn't my intention:sad:

Don't worry Liz ... I did the exact same thing when I received the same e-mail. Then I was informed of the real story here :sad: Circus thing :(

Care to post what the real story is? It's not a zoo, but a circus?

I'm not entirely sure that I'm against circuses, so long as the animals get decent care. No, it's not *ideal* for them to be kept in little cages and travel all over the place, but if people--kids especially--never get to see them, then they will never learn to enjoy and appreciate them, and will never care if there are wild representatives of them.

But if those animals aren't getting proper care, then that's cruelty and it doesn't matter whether I'm asking my cat to jump through a hoop for my neighbour or asking a tiger to nurse piglets for spectators.

Melissa

IMO all circuses are extremely abusive. You might find a liitle insight here on what goes on under all the glitter http://www.captiveanimals.org/circuses/index.htm

That being said here's the real story to this topic http://www.pets.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=28112