[OT] Poor kitty.

[Kahuna Burger]

I hope someone gets it in their head to find an orphan lion or other feline and let her raise that (though that wouldn't solve the milk problem, but still)...

depending on the extent of her infertility, she could lactate if bonded with an infant which attempted to nurse. This would be easier if she had ever had cubs, but I beleive possible even if not. Nature's a fascinating thing...

Kahuna Burger

 

[Ashwyn]

I sincerely hope something good happens for her.

 

[Gez]

I had heard that story before. Yes, poor kitty.

I still have a grudge against my philo teacher who pretended normal animals were less sentient, felt less emotions, than ourselves upstart monkeys.

 

[Ravellion]

The thing is : Poor antilopes. Humans are disgusting creatures - we like cats because we find them pretty. The more alien some creature is, the less we love it. Antilopes are more alien to us than cats, hence we think of the cat's situation primarily here. With the lioness not actually feeding herself with the antilope kids she kills a lot more antilopes than normal, with her adoption in combination with her regular feeding.

I also wonder how you would feel if you, as a mother (hypothetically), lost your kid through abduction, because some other woman can't have kids and felt she needed one. Oh, but we are not animals you say? Exactly. We are more sentient than animals. This situation proves this quite well.

Rav

 

[Skarp Hedin]

You my "friend" have no heart.

I feel bad for the cat, but it's the antelopes who're dying here.

I hope the situation works out well, but I imagine the lioness is just going to get more disturbed mentally over this issue. After all, it's not all that likely to ever work out to her satisfaction -- she's pretty unlikely to ever be able to properly rear an antelope.

It's a pretty interesting behavioral study, though, I bet.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

I have an old cat. She has a litter of kitten every year and is the best mother cat I've seen. Unfortunately, most of her kittens are unhealthy so its rare that more than one per litter makes it to adulthood. I have a lot of cats. Anyway, she's old and senile now and her litters keep getting smaller and smaller. Last year she only had one kitten. If you put a newborn kitten near her, she automatically tries to let it nurse. She notorious of stealing kittens from other cats and raising them.

Last year she discovered a squirrel nest too low in the tree. After slaughtering the adults and eating them, she brought the babies back to the spot she always keeps her kittens. She raised them for about a week before a tom cat snuck in and ate them while she was out hunting. The next week she brought home a baby rabbit and tried the same thing with it. It was older than I suppose she thought it was. It wasn't too big on nursing and kept abandoning the basket. lol She would recatch it each time and bring it back safely. That same bastard had another meal.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The thing is : Poor antilopes. Humans are disgusting creatures - we like cats because we find them pretty. The more alien some creature is, the less we love it. Antilopes are more alien to us than cats, hence we think of the cat's situation primarily here. With the lioness not actually feeding herself with the antilope kids she kills a lot more antilopes than normal, with her adoption in combination with her regular feeding.

I suppose you can assign those feelings and motivations to other people... but its more polite (and less likely to be wrong) if you actually listen to what people are saying for themselves. This is a female creature so driven by the need to be a mother that she ends up destroying the objects of her need. Its a tradgedy for the female and the infants being destroyed. Do not presume to tell us why we react the way we do. You are not qualified.

I also wonder how you would feel if you, as a mother (hypothetically), lost your kid through abduction, because some other woman can't have kids and felt she needed one. Oh, but we are not animals you say? Exactly. We are more sentient than animals. This situation proves this quite well.

Rav

if you are actually wondering this time instead of assigning, I will tell you. A potential mother who had become that unballanced would have my pity, yes, even if it was my child she tried to abduct. The pity might not be first on my list of emotions, but it would be there. "Felt she needed one" is also demeaning to the level of psychosis we are talking about here.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Celtavian]

Re

The maternal, nurturing instinct is strong in females. I imagine it causes the lioness a great deal of pain to be unable to bear children and fulfill her instinctual needs.

The only bad thing us humans do is assume that animals don't have feelings because we don't like to admit that feelings are primal and instinctual, not reasoned or socialized.

Basically, we don't like to admit that humans live as much on instinct as many animals.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Some people just need the emotional superiority they can claim by making this stance.

I had heard that story before. Yes, poor kitty.

I still have a grudge against my philo teacher who pretended normal animals were less sentient, felt less emotions, than ourselves upstart monkeys.

 

[Ravellion]

Very nice and all those maternal feelings. But they are doing more harm than good at this moment - both for the lioness and for the antilopes.

Don't get me wrong... I love cats, and it upset me greatly when I was 15 and the cat I had known for my entire life died. It was also very nice to see my parents' cats dart around the room when I returned to the Netherlands last christmas (they are still the same cats a when I moved out of my parents' home).

I just think there is a case of lost perspective here... Why do we feel pity for the lioness (or at least express it a lot more openly) and not for the several antilope mothers that have lost their children?

And then my previously stated "theory" enters the field (it is not mine - several programs on the Discovery channel dealt with Human psychology towards animals - this does not make it fact, but there were several scientists and psychologists quoted, which make me believe it is atleast proper, and perhaps even accepted, scientific theory). Cats are prettier to us. And the instincts that we have say that we should like that which is pretty (big eyes and thick fur always help). It even apals me: why do I hate fish with such a passion? But why don't I hate sharks, whales, manta rays and dolphins? I have no rational reason for it, which bothers me greatly.

Or, perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way. If the story had been "Antilope herd lost large proportion of young to mentally disturbed lioness" we would all be rooting for the antilopes. in which case I would be posting the reverse.

If the latter is the case, I sure hope that you do all realise there is always another side of the story? Even if CNN or another news source doesn't tell it to you?

So either way, the posts so far seem to me to be lopsided. I don't see why. I would like to know. I am posting theories which I heard before to try and make sense of it. That's all.