Subscribe Now!Tiger Cares for Piglets and Vice-Versa
March 31st, 2007 by ben
The Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand is famous for their unique attractions, fun shows, and the ability for tourists to get close to (and often touch) the tigers. However, the most famous attraction is the couplings of pigs and tigers:
These pictures show two year old Saimai, a Royal Bengal tigress, with the six piglets she is raising.
The tiger doesn’t seem to mind the unclothed piglets, so I’m guessing the costumes were just meant to put on a cute show for the tourists. Either that or she ate the first set of tiger-clad piglets and the zoo hasn’t had time to create new outfits.
While the zoo and all press materials claim the pairings are completely benevolent, I personally wonder if Saimai just views her pig-raising duties as a long “getting ready for dinner” ritual.
Fittingly, Saimai herself was cared for and nursed by a pig:
Thanks Renee!
Hey,
Your blog rocks! nice job. I subscribed to your feed!
Come to visit when you have some time.
Gili
isn’t all this kind of cruel? i mean, we’ve all heard of feral children before (children raised by wolves, etc, etc). they turn out totally different than if they were to be raised by humans. can a tiger raised by a pig, or a pig raised by a tiger turn out “normal” as a tiger, or as a pig, respectively? sure, it’s cute and all, but aren’t we just being cruel in letting a tiger get raised in this way?
piger - good question … would it be less cruel to let the tiger be “a tiger” and eat the pigs?
Okay, so in Lion king, the little cub tries to roar like a lion and it comes out as a meow. I wonder what the pig will try to do…
Anthony
The Insane Membrane
I was raised by wolverines. And possums. No, wait. Just wolverines.
That is great! The tiger skin clothes are cool! Wish I had one, hmm wait, I have tiger skin boots!
Well, they are fake but look really cool!
Aw! Portable Pork..
Bossy wonders if someday her children will brag that they themselves were raised and nursed by a pig.
dinner is already served…6 little piggies!
very cute to see them together ^.^
anita bath: why would letting the tiger eat the pig be cruel? wouldn’t that just be nature at work? and…before the argument of vegetarianism arises, let me point out that we’re talking about animals and not humans. animals don’t have the moral understanding that is behind vegetarianism, so to suggest that the tiger shouldn’t eat the pig out of cruelty is like expecting that a lion in the wild won’t hunt and eat a gazelle. a lion wouldn’t know any better.
Hey, really like this blog. Awesome past time!!
piger - I don’t think it’s cruel at all, you’re right … it’s natural. Allowing a pig to raise a tiger isn’t necessarily cruel either unless the handlers then relocate the tiger back out to the wild.
But that could be said of any zoo animal. Keeping them in a zoo doesn’t seem so bad if they have a large enough area and are happy … releasing them into the wild unequipped seems cruel.
You have to wonder where they got the tiger skin coats…
Edit: I just noticed that three of them were pink… lol my bad.
I had the same thought as soon as I saw the picture: she’s gonna eat her kids. Then after thinking about vice versa… the kids are going to eat their mom! Yikes! I’m glad it’s doable, but I hope they get weaned before disaster happens! Wow! I’m amazed.
ok this is a little weird but it’s also kind of cool
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that is so coll. i cant belvie my eyes.i m moved
that is so cute
hay that piger is kinda rude just back off its cute and u have no say in things piger. if that tiger wants to nurse the pigs thann ok.
Piger,
A mother tiger who lost her babies and gets depressed.
Piglets that would have been raised in horrible conditions to get slaughtered into porkchops, are the only babies available at the time.
Now, everone seems happy.
What do you want?
We could argue that they would be happier in the wild but it’s still better than nothing.
[…] clipped from www.saynotocrack.com […]
that is so stupid what was really the point of doing that like common now can some one really explain to me,
how come the pigs are with a tiger the last time i checked pigs and tigers dont go no where together. Pigs are raised on farms and TIGER ARE RAISED IN THE WILDERNESS DUHHH…
thanks for the help your making with these adopted animals reared by other species. it’s marvellous
i thought that all of the pictures were amazing!the most amazing part to me in the description was that the mother lion decided to nurse the piglets after losing her own to cubs!its astonishing!she was so depressed she was willing to take others in!
from IZ
Hello.
=].
We think that these pictures are the CAUTEST pictures evvvvvver!
:D!.
So caute…could make ya cry! ;(! lol.
XD!.
Love Gemma and Rebekah!
xxxx….VOTE THE TIGERS AND THE PIGS! lol
I don’t see what’s wrong with it. The animals are in a zoo anyway; it’s hardly a natural environment. Who cares if the piglets grow up thinking they’re tigers, or the cubs thinking they’re pigs. It’s not going to harm them in their future lives, is it? I mean, I doubt they’d seriously consider releasing the tigers or pigs into the wild anyway, so they won’t have a chance to live a natural life. Isn’t being hand-reared on a milk bottle worse than being nurtured by an animal from a different species?
I think that it is pretty cute and tht whoever thinks its wierd can just shut up. So what if a tiger is nursing pigs?! W/E!
wow!!!
they look cute together…
i love those pics….
I think if the tiger raises the pigs it should be aloud to eat them when they are full grown.
this is outrageous, did you see the tiger skins on the piglets. this is against nature. this is not what god intended
Beautiful. What else can I say?
Lol @ it being against nature. If god’s got a problem with it, I’m sure he’s capable of fixing it. Who knows, might be the last straw; an adoptive abomination and now he’ll smite us all!
Piger,
Nobody is trying to start an argument but you and nobody even tried to mention vegetarianism. All Anita Bath was trying to ask was would you rather she was eating the pigs instead of being maternal to them?
I would agree with you normally, had this been a wild tigress and wild pigs thrown together and forced to act this way, but they are not. I might like to point out that this behaviour is not unheard of in the wild either: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2002/2002-02-21-06.asp
They are animals in captivity where odd behaviour of this kind will not bring them to any harm. Further more, how can it be cruel if the tigress knows no different? She and her ‘young’ seem quite content and I’m sure that it would have been obvious by now if they were not.
I think that it’s better to let the Tiger act however it wants and let the piggies act how they want to. Everyone has 1 life, or for religious ppl, 1 different type for each life. Let them live how they want to. If i was told what was right and what is wrong then i’d get ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!!! lol. Anyways, it is what makes this tiger unique and special so let it have its uniqueness. Not because the stereotypical Tiger…. Piger…. HEY THAT RHYMES!!! Yay!!!! I did rhymeys. O.O Ignore my random sentences in this comment.
ooooohhhhh thats so cute
that is so cute i love pigs and tigers.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are sssssooooooooo cute!!!!! I want 1 of my own!
I see nothing wrong or uncommon with this picture…There are many examples in nature where animals(predators) take baby animals(prey) “under their wings”…Scientists speculated that it’s the natural instinct of a parent that they care for the baby animals…But most examples involve female predators…
It seems that the tiger had become accustomed to pigs since she too was raised by a female pig in captivity…So in a sense she probably thinks of these pigglets as children of her own…
Kinda cool I think =)
humans drink cow’s milk right? the only problem I can imagine is if the babies are getting the wrong hormones from the surrogate mother. Of course the mama tiger herself was raised by a pig and she’s just fine!
in a way its cruel cuz the tiger is practicly raising its own food! and the piglets dont stand a chance. but yeah its cute and if thats what a tiger wants to do then let it!
xXxGemmaxXx
go mother nature & get without intervntion
Tiger are bad pets and it is good to go to the zoo to see they.
I’d hate to be the one who skinned the tiger cubs and dressed the piglets in them.
I don’t see anything wrong with this. If the Tigress was raised by a pig, then she might think of the pigs as her natural children anyway. The piglets probably had no mother and seeing as the Tigress was raised by a pig with Piglet siblings (which you can see in the picture) i doubt that the tiger would eat teh pigs.
the Lucy person who says it is outrageous and not what God intended-i think that seing as similar things happen in teh Wild, the pigletsd may have died if they were without a mother and all the animals are happy now, how can that not be good?
The animals won’t be released into the wild so if the tiger thinks she’s a pig or the pigs think they’re tigers it shouldn’t matter.
\Anyway, this is really interesting. I also liked reading other people’s views on it.
Thanks for sharing it!
yall r sooooo stupid no wonder the eceonomy is messed up around here the only thing ur doing is ruening mother nature and u should be so ashamed of yourselfs im sure mother nature worked hard on this kind of stuff but since some people want to be ignorant we are going to have man eating pigs!!
I got an email with this, I think it’s cool the piglets saved the tiger from dying of depression, but they shouldn’t make a habit of it. some1 made a good point, they wouldn’t b “true” pigs b/c they weren’t raised by one. will she teach them to hunt when they get bigger? what if she tried to pick them up by the scruff to carry them off?
i don’t really see anything wrong with this. like someone else pointed out similar things have actually happened in the wild, where predator raises prey. it is after all a mothers natural instinct, but what will happen to the pigs when they are grown? a tiger looks after babies for over 2 years while pigs don’t need any care from a parent after a few months. will they just remove the pigs and kill them? kill them and feed them to the tiger? i doubt she’d realise she was eating her adopted babies or if she’d care for that matter, food is food right? but it would seem wrong somehow. i hope they find a nice friendly place for the pigs to live when they are grown instead of killing them when they are no longer useful:(
yall are stupid.It ain’t no problem with this.It’s like sayin we cant raise cats,dogs,etc… b/c they gonna turn out like us. but does that happen??? NO!!!
Hm, the girl Luci who said this was against what God intended - no offense, but I don’t think either the tiger OR the pigs read any scripture or had any formal religious or dogmatic education.
Think, people, NO training can make a tiger want to nurse, instead of eat, a pig - the tiger obviously WANTS to care for them - and if that’s the act of a wild creatures, then its obviously God’s will or a gift of nature, whatever you believe in. You might want to try thinking before you speak.
There are many documented cases of wild and domestic animals raising the young of another species - this is far from the first, but very cute. Many dogs have nursed kittens, and not in a zoo or any setup environment, but simply because they chose to care for them.
Maybe the animals just have a little more sense then people - the instinct of any mother to protect the life of any ‘child’ is a beautiful thing - hard to fathom anyone calling it unnatural or against God or any other such drek.
You can’t TEACH maternal instincts, and you certainly can’t FORCE a predator to protect and raise it’s natural prey - that, Luci, is as divine as it gets.
The little tiger suits on the pigs is the only odd thing about it - people do really weird things.
I khow why The tigres dosen’t eat pig coz tigres know that pig is “haram”, right.
those are the cutest things in the world
i dont get it who killed the tiger the pigs or the hunters because it looks like the pigs did
??
“piger” DOUCHE.
first off, you’re basically promoting it in your name are you not? idiot.
+i think you need to understand that it’s not cruel to be doing this, the tiger was DEPRESSED. leaving it depressed would be cruel.
don’t you realize all ZOOS are cruel!?
“oh yeh, let’s just catch these animals+take away their lives+choices to do anything anywhere.”
the ONLY time i ever support animals in captivity is if they could not POSSIBLY survive on their own, like twoheaded animals or animals with other deformites+that is ONLY if the person taking care is taking GREAT care of this animal.
+before anone asks, no, i do not own pets or EAT ANY ANIMAL.
you all need to start thinking on the wavelength of the ANIMAL here. you are not an animal so you are COMPLETELY incapable of thinking as one. she would’ve bee completely depressed, the poor tiger.
+like the other guy said, god is not a part of the lives of animals, sorry.
+idiot, the tiger’s not dead.
kthanks. [=
gotta also point out to those of you who are ignorant:
the tiger is RAISING the pigs as it’s own.
THEY ARE NOT FOOD.
what is happening to america?
get an education before posting.
+anyone who wants to post to me back, sry, i’ll prolly never be back on this site again.
mk? thanks, have fun kiddies.
lol thats funny i thot it was edited @ first then i scrolled down. To bad they’re gonna hav 2 get seperated @ one time or another…that or they get eated lol
To respond to the question of the ethics of the thing–whether the tiger or pigs would grow up to be “normal,” If they’re happy, I think it’s perfectly ethical.
Also, though, I heard that the zoo just did this to get cute pictures?
one pig is facing the wrong way!
I love the fact that this tiger is so ccaring and loving to the piglets but please take those tiger skins of the pigs!