Baby Tiger’s Mom is a Dog
The baby tiger and her adoptive mother.
In an interesting pairing, Asahi.com is reporting (J) that at the Shirotori Zoo (J) in Kagawa Prefecture, a female Bengal Tiger has been “adopted” by a French Bulldog named Nana.
The as-yet-unnamed tiger was born on April 26th, but for some reason, the tiger’s natural mother didn’t take care of her. The zookeepers took her out of that cage and put her in a bed designed for dogs in labor and began feeding her formula by hand. Then, six days ago, the two-year-old Nana was in a nearby bed when she gave birth to a stillborn puppy. Nana then started acting very interested in the baby tiger nearby.
Curious, the zookeepers put the baby tiger in with the dog to see what would happen. Nana immediately began cleaning the tiger as if it were her own baby, and got the tiger to nurse as well.
Since Nana isn’t able to supply enough milk for a tiger nearly the same size as herself, the zookeepers are helping out with formula. It seems to be going well, since the two pound (900g) baby is already up to five pounds (2.3Kg)
The tiger’s keeper was quoted (J) by the Asashi Newspaper as saying that the relationship goes both ways—the tiger has apparently accepted the dog as her mother. If all goes well, the zoo intends to display the tiger to the public starting in June.
As seen on YouTube: