Tigers and pigs … together?
by David Catchpoole
Tigers lying down placidly with pigs—what is going
on here? Aren’t tigers supposed to be ferocious killer carnivores? And why are
these pigs so unconcerned?
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Photo: Sriracha Tiger Zoo
Tiger cubs gather to feed on milk from a pig in Thailand’s Sriracha Zoo.
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Most people would be astonished to see these photographs.
But for staff at Thailand’s Sriracha Zoo, renowned for its tiger-breeding program,1
such scenes are an everyday occurrence. How can this be?
The zoo, in the Sriracha District in eastern Chonburi
Province, employs a unique technique to speed up the growth of tiger cubs. Very simply,
the zoo uses pig milk … suckled direct from a domestic sow by the cubs
themselves!2
We have become conditioned to think that it is perfectly ‘natural’ for a strong and swift animal such as a lion or tiger to prey upon a weaker animal ...
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The zoo’s success with this innovative approach
shows that tiger cubs thrive on pigs’ milk, with much faster growth rates than if
raised on tiger milk alone.3 Since 1997, when the zoo began raising tigers this way, 300
Bengali tigers are now reported to have ‘graduated’ from the breeding
program.4
Who would have ever imagined that such ferocious
carnivores could be nursed by mother pigs? In fact, the zoo says that tigers raised in
such a manner grow up much calmer than if nursed by their natural mothers—as these
astonishing photos seem to indicate. Visitors have affirmed that, in several areas in the
zoo, one can clearly see tiger cubs snuggling up to mother pigs and freely intermingling
with piglets. ‘Amazingly they played and seemed to enjoy each other’s company
very much.’5
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Photo: Sriracha Tiger Zoo
Piglets feel unthreatened taking a nap on the back of a mother tiger, at Thailand’s Sriracha Zoo.
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People’s reactions of ‘Amazing!’,
‘Incredible!’ etc., on seeing these scenes at Sriracha Zoo very much reflect
the fact that we have become desensitized to carnivory in the world. That is, we have
become conditioned to think that it is perfectly ‘natural’ for a strong and
swift animal such as a lion or tiger to prey upon a weaker animal such as a young gazelle
or oryx or, for that matter, a juicy fat piglet.6
But there was a brief time, before Adam sinned, when
indeed tigers and piglets, lions and calves, wolves and lambs (or at any rate the
pre-Flood representatives of their respective kinds7) freely mingled peaceably
together—a time before carnivory, pain and death.8 And, amazing as it might sound
to people accustomed to a world suffering the effects of the Curse, the Bible tells us of
such a time to come (Isaiah 11:6; 65:25).
References and notes
- Sriracha Tiger Zoo, <www.tigerzoo.com/cont.html>, 29 May 2003.
- International Zoo News 47/7(304) [downloaded from
<www.zoonews.ws/IZN/304/IZN-304.html>, 29 May 2003], October/November 2000.
- Wannabovorn S., Tiger Zoo Thrives as Thai Economy Dives,
<forests.org/archive/asia/tigerzoo.htm>, 29 May 2003.
- ABC Action News, Creating a Calmer Tiger,
<abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/05202003_animal_tigerpig.html>, 3 June 2003.
- Ratware, Tiger Encounters,
<www.ratware.plus.com/Animals/animals_tigers.htm>, 3 June 2003.
- The worldwide reaction to reports of a grown lioness in the wild protectively
‘adopting’ and giving affection to baby oryxes was another case in point.
Catchpoole,
D., Echoes of
Eden, Creation 24(4) 14–15, 2002.
- Animals have diversified, even speciated, within the limits of the information in
their kind since creation. Tigers, lions, leopards, etc. probably came from one original
‘cat kind’, so at first there would have been no ‘tigers’ as
such. See Batten,
D., Ligers and
wholphins? What next? Creation 22(3):28–33, 2000.
- The scenes at Sriracha Zoo demonstrate that if nutritional needs are satisfied, there
is no need to hunt. Before the Fall and curse on the ground (Genesis 3:17–19), plants were an adequate diet (Genesis 1:30).
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