Story:
Check out these amazing photos of a tigress caring for piglets. Taken at a zoo in Thailand, the tigress was apparently raised by a sow and so views these piglets as members of her own species. In a case of nature vs nurture, it looks like nurture won out this time!
Other Versions
In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triple tiger cubs.
Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, died shortly after birth.
The mother tiger 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 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…….. you won’t believe your eyes!!!!”
Facts Analysis:
These messages, in various variants have been circulating since few years. They come with pictures of a Tiger feeding Piglets in tiger skins. Although the pictures are in fact genuine, the stories that accompany them are not completely true.
The messages state that the grieving mother Tiger is feeding the piglets in tiger skins in a zoo in California – that it is returning the favor as she has grown up feeding on the Piglet’s mother. But the pictures were actually taken in Sriracha Tiger Zoo located in Sri Racha city of Thailand. The pictures were taken back in 2004, when the Sriracha Tiger Zoo hosted tigers, elephants, crocodiles, camels, snakes and other interesting animals; and became famous for exhibiting cross-species living and feeding together.
Sriracha Tiger Zoo is in fact a zoo-circus, where the cross-species animals are ‘trained’ to live together and feed each other, under close supervision of the zoo caretakers. The pictures in the stories show the same. The documentary video right below about this special zoo shows and describes piglets and cubs feeding together on a Pig and also piglets suckling a Tiger.
The piglets were in fact ‘dressed up’ in tiger-print costumes, for the sake of visual treat of the audience. Other enclosures in the Tiger zoo also exhibited housed tigers, pigs, and dogs together. The zoo also maintains a practice of allowing its visitors to nurse and feed the tiger cubs.
Therefore, the so called heart-touching stories associated with the photographs of Tiger and Piglets are hoaxes. The piglets and the tiger are in fact trained to live and feed together. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to watch those different species together!
Hoax or Fact:
Partially Fact.
0 Comments