L1P1
03-06-05, 09:51 PM
I heard about this first on NPR and was intrigued. A lioness separated from her pride in the wild in Africa actually adopted a baby antelope. This was a lead up to a Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom special on Animal Planet.
Fascinating. I'm sure that there will be repeats so....
SPOILER WARNING (stop here if you want to watch what happens without knowing the end result)
In the end I only saw the last fifteen minutes but, from the NPR interview didn't feel that I had missed much (other than visuals).
Sure enough, lioness adopts antelope. It doesn't seem too much a mystery to me, as a displaced social predator might well resort to some sort of plan B given a complete lack of place within a community she's probably hardwired to want. I bet it's happened countless times before, but never witnessed by humans. What did surprise me was the reaction of the human 'experts'.
When I tuned in, the situation had become dire. Both animals were starving. The locals were agreed upon the fact that this was something special (if not a direct sign form God - I thought about the lion laying down with the lamb) and that they should be fed. In fact the narrator/expert was a little bummed when the local warden actually tried to do that (without success).
In the end, the antelope was unceremoniously killed and eaten by a male lion waiting in ambush. The lioness could do nothing. Supposedly, the lioness adopted several more antelopes but none lasted as long and she finally disappeared.
WTF? I'm no naturalist, but it appeared obvious to me that here was a fascinating situation that could shed a lot of light on the nature of social structures within the animal kingdom. It was clear that one or both would die without some sort of intervention. They both could've been saved and studied over a long period of time in a controlled area (no, not a 10X10 cage).
The expert wept when the antelope was killed. And although I'll be the first to admit that killing, dying, and eating is part and parcel of the natural world, I wanted to punch her in the nose.
Fascinating. I'm sure that there will be repeats so....
SPOILER WARNING (stop here if you want to watch what happens without knowing the end result)
In the end I only saw the last fifteen minutes but, from the NPR interview didn't feel that I had missed much (other than visuals).
Sure enough, lioness adopts antelope. It doesn't seem too much a mystery to me, as a displaced social predator might well resort to some sort of plan B given a complete lack of place within a community she's probably hardwired to want. I bet it's happened countless times before, but never witnessed by humans. What did surprise me was the reaction of the human 'experts'.
When I tuned in, the situation had become dire. Both animals were starving. The locals were agreed upon the fact that this was something special (if not a direct sign form God - I thought about the lion laying down with the lamb) and that they should be fed. In fact the narrator/expert was a little bummed when the local warden actually tried to do that (without success).
In the end, the antelope was unceremoniously killed and eaten by a male lion waiting in ambush. The lioness could do nothing. Supposedly, the lioness adopted several more antelopes but none lasted as long and she finally disappeared.
WTF? I'm no naturalist, but it appeared obvious to me that here was a fascinating situation that could shed a lot of light on the nature of social structures within the animal kingdom. It was clear that one or both would die without some sort of intervention. They both could've been saved and studied over a long period of time in a controlled area (no, not a 10X10 cage).
The expert wept when the antelope was killed. And although I'll be the first to admit that killing, dying, and eating is part and parcel of the natural world, I wanted to punch her in the nose.