A friend of mine told me about this story. I don't know if it's true, if the tiger was drugged or someone deserves an award for their photoshop-ing skills but nevertheless, it's an interesting story and exemplifies the whole point of this post.
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?
I didn't believe my eyes either when I first read this story. Yesterday, when I returned from the memorial service at the WTC where I laid flowers for my brother-in-law, a dear friend and for all the poor souls who perished that day, I opened the email containing this story. A friend sent it. She thought it would cheer me up....it did.
译文:
谁说咱不能友好相处？？！！
这是我朋友告诉我的一个故事。我也不知道是真是假，也许那头老虎喝了迷魂药，或是哪位高手用电脑合成了这么张照片。然而，这的确是个有趣的故事，证明了事物还是有极端的。
在加利福尼亚的一个动物园里，一头雌性老虎生下了罕见的三胞胎虎宝宝。不幸的是，由于孕期并发症，虎宝宝都因早产个头小，出世后不久便夭折了。虎妈妈刚从分娩后恢复，健康状况又突然下滑了。
尽管她身体尚可，但兽医认为丧子之痛令虎妈妈精神消沉。所以医生决定，如果能让她代育其他幼仔，或许能改善下虎妈妈的状况。
经过与全国许多动物园的协商后，坏消息是暂时没有适龄的虎宝宝能缓解这头虎妈妈的悲伤。
有时候一位动物妈妈会照顾另一个物种的孩子。而唯一能在短时内充当“虎宝宝”的就是一群刚断奶的小猪崽。
动物园的管理员和兽医们给小猪崽们穿上“虎皮衣”，并把它们放在虎妈妈的周围。虎妈妈会接受这群小宝宝吗？还是把他们当成可口的点心？
当我第一次看到这个故事的时候，我也不敢相信自己的眼睛。昨天，我在世贸中心的纪念馆为我的姐夫献完花回来的时候，我收到一封关于这则故事的电子邮件。是我的一个朋友寄给我的，她想以此让我高兴一下……因为，虎妈妈接受了她的“虎宝宝”们。