| Wednesday, February 20, 2002 |
19:02 - Then again, there's stuff like this...
http://www.news24.co.za/News24/Technology/Science_Nature/0,1113,2-13-46_1136195,00.h
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A lioness in Kenya has been... well, doing something that's going to cause rampant speculation from animal psychologists to theologists to vegetarians to Lion King fans the world over. She's been running around the preserve with a baby oryx in tow.
The lioness puzzled wildlife experts, game watchers and villagers in Samburu after it struck a friendship with an oryx calf, escorting and protecting it around the game reserve for 15 days.
Tourists and game workers had watched in disbelief as the lioness and the tottery brown baby oryx walk side by side and lay down to rest with all the intimacy of a mother and calf.
She even permitted the calf's mother to nurse the baby before resuming her guardianship. Experts believe the lioness had bonded with the calf after both had been abandoned by their own kind.
The calf was eventually attacked and killed by a male lion while the lioness was napping. She howled in mourning for hours afterward before vanishing into the bush for a time.
And now she's following more herds of oryx through the preserve, trying to continue doing the same thing.
I can just see the sitcom ideas. "Can't you see we're in love? Can't you accept our relationship for what it is?"
Naah, must just be all those waves of positive energy coming out of the palindromic day and stuff.
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