nature
Two tiger mothers babysat each other's cubs on camera
The textbooks say tigers are loners. Two mothers had other ideas.
Wildlife researchers filming the BBC Earth documentary Tiger Island in Nepal's Bardia National Park captured something field guides say should not happen. Two tiger mothers were babysitting each other's cubs. Drone footage showed a tiger named Goma resting with her two cubs, when a third joined, then a fourth, then a fifth, until the whole group settled into one rust-colored pile. The extra three belonged to another mother, Jugini, who had gone off to feed herself. Tigers usually avoid one another unless they have no choice, so the team suspects the two arranged shared parenting to protect the cubs from males. The reason stays a mystery. What is not a mystery is how the crew reacted. "They don't share cubs, they don't share parenting duties," said wildlife biologist and host Dan O'Neill. Cinematographer Max Hug Williams put it more plainly. "This is NOT what it says in the textbooks."
