It was a horrible sight. The Asian Tiger, once standing tall, prowling stealthily and hunting with such vigor and enthusiasm in the jungle environment made for her cage. Now she didn't leave her den.
Sobs and whimpers could be heard from it, sounds of her mourning resounded through the whole of the carnivorous cats section.
The other animal's didn't make a sound, all affected by her grief.
"It's always so hard for a young mother to lose a child. Especially if it's her first."
The zookeeper, Mrs Wong, a fifty something middle aged woman walked to my side.
She exuded confidence and didn't look like a woman who would take no for an answer.
She looked at me for a moment.
"It seems you're new too. Are you the one assigned to her?"
"Yes ma'am." I answered nervously.
We stood in silence, listening to the sobbings.
"Has she come out?" She asked me.
"No.. Not since we took note and confirmed their deaths." I answered immediately.
"Confirmed their deaths? It was more than one cub?"
"Yes ma'am, two cubs. A male and a female."
She put her hands on her head.
"And they're both dead?"
"One is. The other is close."
"Why haven't you rescued it yet?" She asked, screaming.
I shrunk away from her yell. Yet she didn't allow me to get too far without giving her an answer.
"Why hasn't the cub been rescued?!!"
"With all due respect ma, that's a full grown tiger ma'am. We couldn't go in and simply pull away her cub. We needed some equipment, equipment that needs your approval."
"Anything you need, you've got it. Just go in there now and rescue it." She urged me away.
Walking away from the viewing glass, I dug out my phone from my pocket and quickly dialed a number as I walked into the staff room.
The line finally went through and I didn't waste any time in giving my orders.
"It's time!! Go go go"
The line was cut short immediately but I knew they heard my command because I could hear the boots running and guns clacking.
I finished changing into my gear in the staff room and walked out to the tiger's pen.
Slowly, I walked in and met the guards standing in formation, each armed with a tranquilizer gun.
The Captain walked to me and gave me a brief explanation of the situation.
"We've spotted the target and the cubs. Yet there seems to be some complications... It's hard to explain, best you see it for yourself."
He took me to the den and the sight I saw shook me.
The two cubs were dead, and the mother stood guarding them, emaciated and looking close to death herself.
"She doesn't seem aggressive, or more like she looks too weak to be aggressive."
"We didn't know if it was still safe to shoot the tranq darts." The captain explained.
I looked at her body, doing the mental maths and scaling her in my head.
"You made the right call, Captain." I informed him honestly.
If they had fired the initial amount that I had planned for her, and they fired that amount of tranquilizer into her current state she would have died.
Now we have a chance to save her, a small chance.
I walked out of the den and looked at the one-way mirror, where I knew Mrs Wong was standing.
I gave her a slow shake of the head and went to my case to take an injection which can prescribe the right amount of tranquilizer.
After she went unconscious, we went about disposing of the corpses and beginning her treatment.
The veterinarian who saw her gasped in shock.
"She's so frail." Emma said looking at the sleeping Khifa with her eyes widened.
She was the inhouse vet and everyone liked her for her promptness and clinical accuracy.
In less than thirty seconds, she had set up the IV and began pumping liquids into Khifa's blood stream.
I looked on curiously and she replied reassuringly.
"It's not a problem at all, don't worry about it. She's simply starved."
"The IV is to help get some liquids in her system and keep her active." She explained again, pointing at the drip set up.
"I suggest you get some food ready, once she wakes up, she's going to be very hungry, and you don't want to be on the menu."
I took that as a hint to give her some space and go hunting for meat.
It's been five months since that incident and still Khifa looked ill.
"I don't think she's eating." I aired my thoughts to Emma.
"She isn't, maybe she's still mourning or depres..."
Just as she was about to finish her sentence, Mrs. Wong walked in.
"What're we going to do?!!"
"She isn't eating or drinking, she is the main attraction of my zoo and now she has been in rehabilitation for five months!!"
"It's clear that she's depressed, ma." Emma answered.
"How do we cure depression for a tiger? Therapy?" Mrs. Wong asked back.
Emma was silent, it was a real puzzle.
"If only she had her cubs with her." Mrs Wong spoke, lamenting.
Instantly my brain ticked.
"That's it." I said out loud.
"What is?" Mrs Wong asked, confused.
"Khifa needs her cubs." I say with satisfaction.
"Well all her cubs are dead!" Mrs Wong said in anger.
"Who said it had to her cub?" I asked back.
After explaining my plan to both Mrs Wong and Emma, I put it into action.
Starting with the one animal which has the highest probability of success.
"A pig?" Emma and Mrs Wong asked cautiously as I had in my hands two piglets dressed in tiger suits.
"You never know." I walked into the tiger habitat and set the piglets somewhere close to where Kifka layed.
We watched the recording through a camera.
Kifka came out and met the strange sight. Two animals that looked like her yet still didn't look like her.
She was hesitant at first, slowly watching and growling at the new inhabitants of her cage.
After some time, she warmed up to them and gave them a lick.
She walked slowly back into her den and they followed her.
It was a house of cheers as we watched a miracle.
Three weeks later, the change in Kifka was visible, she had taken the piglet's as her own cub and even began nursing them.
As such she began eating more and gaining more life.
Her mothering instincts had crossed the boundaries of species and now she was thriving.
Five weeks later, she was fit enough to be put back on display, her and her two piglets wearing a tigers suit. It was a new crowd favorite, Kifka was then dubbed the Mother Tiger.
This story was inspired by The Mother Tiger who adopted Orphaned Piglets Hoax which was trending in my chrome browser feed a few months back.
For some reason I remembered it and decided to do some more digging and then was moved to write about it.
I don't know much about the workings of a zoo, and not much about the animal "Tiger" in particular as it's not a native of my country and zoo's aren't really active in my city either😂
I haven't gone to one at all...
There's a video about the post though and the fact is more realistic, but the hoax is more heartwarming. Depends on your taste I guess.
This is a response to the May Inleo Monthly Prompts posted by @leogrowth.
Nothing like some cross species Mothering 😂😂🐅
You should check the prompts out if you don't know what to write and need some ideas...
Lovely prompts on here...
- Header Image Gotten from Pixabay
My Instagram page.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
An interesting inspiration for a story! Animals that have mothering instinct do seem to do better when they have young to care for, even if the story about the tiger and the piglets was a hoax. Thank you for sharing your story in The Ink Well, and for reading and commenting on the work of other community members.
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Hahaha. Sorry for the laugh but this is interesting and also kinda delulu. Tigers are highly perceptive and rely on various senses to detect other animals. Anyway, anything goes in creative writing. Mrs Wong took me out with the therapy talk. She could take up the job tho.😭
😂😂😂
It is strange that a tiger is nursing pigs somewhere now in the world.
What's even stranger is that a sow is nursing tiger cubs, and apparently the cubs are growing faster with the pigs breast milk than how they averagely do when being fed with their own mother's milk.
This is just unnerving ngl.
How so?😂
It is very moving to know stories like this. The wild world is not always so crude, there are cases like those in your story where predator and prey coexist in harmony and protect each other.
Thanks for sharing.
Good Monday.
Indeed...
Sometimes pig mother's can leave their kids in the tiger day-care 😂😂😂