Two days ago a friend posted a YouTube video at Facebook, it showed a leopard (female, I suppose) which had just killed a female baboon. As it is the use with leopards she carried the dead baboon to the nearest tree to keep it away from hyenas and lions. Once on the tree the leopard got aware that there was a baby baboon, just some days old, attached to the dead body of its mother. The attitude of the cat changed immediately and it began to behave like a mother leopard would act with its own baby, licking it, playing and keeping it safe on the tree. Watch the video
Obviously this touching story can’t have a good end as the female wasn’t able to feed the little baboon.
It is interesting to realise that the emotions which sore while hunting, the excitement and eagerness to catch the prey, may change abruptly when a new image wakes up completely different feelings.
(I am not using the word instincts because I don’t see why we insist to consider animals been directed by them while we humans supposedly experience emotions, it seems just one more failed attempt to put a barrier between animals and humans.)
Scientists have proven that round forms in the appearance of living beings wake up a protective motherly emotion in many developed mammals, therefore also in us. You know that typical reaction of “Oooohs” and “Aaahs” and expressions like “sweet” and “cute” which burst out immediately and automatically when humans see a puppy, little duck, chicken etc?
We can’t help ourselves to find those round forms of babies and animals so loveable!
Good trick from Mother Nature isn’t it?
It seems the same happened to the poor leopard , she got a lot of problems!
adult rabbit
I had a similar experience many years ago when I had a rabbit farm and a pack of 9 dogs, mixed ones, the ones which still have a normal brain. They used to go hunting in the nearby forest which belonged to my place, mainly in search of wild rabbit caves. Maybe you don’t know that the rabbit mother visits her baby rabbits only once a day to feed them, a tactic to avoid to attract predators. After the babies have finished sucking their milk she covers the entrance of the cave completely with soil, grass and leaves very carefully, checking once and again that there’s nothing looking like a rabbit home but specially making sure that no smell comes out from the inside, she checks thoroughly by sniffing again and again till she’s satisfied and disappears till the next day.
entrance to a rabbit den
Unfortunately sometimes the excellent sense of smell of a dog or fox is able to detect the hidden secret and that means always the death of all the little rabbits, well, not always as you will see!
That day I discovered one of my female dogs lying on the veranda and protecting 4 newborn rabbits against the rest of the pack which was not understanding a “word” of what was going on!
approximately 1 week old rabbits
I understand that my dog (I remember she was called “Mia”) discovered the entrance of a rabbit den and after reaching the rabbits she must have been overwhelmed by motherly feelings by the tiny, round, baby-looking and squeaking forms. She forgot about hunting and switched over to a defensive attitude, a successful one as she had managed to keep off the rest of her colleagues which were not quite understanding.
Happily this time the story had a happy end, we removed the babies and made two nursing rabbit mothers of the farm to adopt the little ones. They grew up very fast and were later on again released into the wild.
I have always found it very interesting to observe how a strong feeling can change into the nearly opposite when the necessary conditions are there.
Another feeling which can change suddenly is anger. I experienced in my own person how a rather strong feeling of hatred (!) to another person with whom I nearly got involved into a fight coz of our juvenile stupidity, changed to a firm emotion of compassion.
How did this happen? Some months after the incident during which I had cut off any contact with the other guy, I learned that he had been diagnosed a little tumor in his brain which had to be removed. In that moment it came to my mind that he had a wife and a baby, how they would be suffering and how scared he would probably be! I understood and felt their suffering and compassion arose in me with the subsequent desire to help, no hatred at all was left and we are nowadays friends again. His case was fortunately solved without consequences by the doctors.
What happened to me is actually a good example for a well known Buddhist principle or teaching:
Deep Understanding of the others’ Suffering brings about Compassion which is consequently followed by love and the need to act.
Have you experienced something similar?
Nature and People 