[spam] Re: The Eye of the Tiger

CSGnet Archive CSG2006
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[From Kenny Kitzke (2006.08.13)]

<Ken, this has been known for quite some time. If you’d like I’d dig up some references for you on some other cases.>

I am aware of various “surrogate” mother experiences in the domisticated animal kingdom. If you have a reference for a wild animal (even one in captivity), or specifically another mother tiger, I would appreciate you digging that up. The vets say nothing like this was ever tried before in a zoo. I would assume the liklihood of it happening in the wild is far smaller.

Here we have a tiger whom even those at the zoo were wondering if the tiger would kill the piglets much less adopt and protect them. Wouldn’t that be your expectation for the tiger’s “behavior/action?” Yet, it behaved differently even abnormally. Why?

The vets at the zoo made this speculation: "The

veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to
fall into a
depression.

Is this science? Is this what scientists do who think behavior is a cause and effect phenomena? Who will inform them of their fuzzy thinking? Do we have a psychologist in CSG who would diagnose this (or any) tiger as “falling into a depression?”

These same scientists stated, "there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to

the mourning mother."

Did you know that tigers mourn? I guess if you believe they get “depressed” they could also fall into “mourning.”

I was especially amused by the vets wrapping the piglets in tiger sweaters. I wonder how the tiger perceived that? Was she so easily deceived? What if two of the piglets had no tiger pants? Would the tigress had behaved differently with those?

Note this zoo is in LaLaLand. I wish Rick would go to the zoo and offer these vets some real PCT science, so they could test for what variable the tigress is controlling and perhaps learn a little about the science of psychology referred to as PCT. I think this would be a more fruitful endeavor than analyzing Condi’s veracity or the propensity for Republicans to be hypocrits.

I think PCT explains this quite well. If we perceive ourselves as “parents” than nurturing “children” is probably an intrinsic need. But there currently is no scientific explanation for this.

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In a message dated 8/12/2006 1:39:50 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, KJKitzke@AOL.COM writes:

The veterinarians decided to try something tha t

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 weaner pigs. The zoo
keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the
babies around the mother tiger.

Wrapping an infant lamb in the skin of a mother’s own dead lamb seems to be a long-standing practice of shepherds aimed at getting the mother to nurse the other lamb. Perceptions of importance in doing so seem related to smell – and possibly sight in the case of the tiger/piglets.

As I recall, Thomas Harding mentions this practice in Far from the Madding Crowd".

PCT seems to provide a clear basis for understanding what happened at the zoo when piglets were wrapped in tiger skin and given to the tigress who cubs had died at birth.

Rich Pfau