That was the saddest & most wonderful thing I've ever se

smudgeoffudge · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:48 am

I just watched the Animal Planet's Show Wild Kingdom.
A lion is seperated from her pride and she is very lonely. She finds a baby Orayx and instead of eatting it, she adopts it. She walks along with it for about 15 days. Neither she nor the baby Orayx eat anything. Later, she is very very hungry but still doesn't eat the Oryx. The little Oryx is starving and then it probably would have died but another male lion got it. The female lion wanted to save the oryx, as she saw this as her baby. But she was unable to do it. It was so sad. Later she kiddnapped/adopted other oryxs. One was taken away from her by wildlife people, another escaped and rejoined it's mother, I think one starved or something like that. She just kept trying to get one! They said that she would eat other kinds of animals like gazelles and warthogs, but never would she eat a baby oryx. She always saw them as a cub for some reason. She hasn't been seen since 2003, but I hope one day they will find her again. I hope she finally had some cubs of her own and started a pride of her own. She was such a strange and wonderful lioness. I would like to think she raised one to an adult and is running with him out there somewhere.

http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/wildkingdom/wildkingdom.html

Base · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:59 am

I saw an ad for that! It looked very very good, but I couldn't watch it. I was coming home from my grandparents' house when it was on. I really wanted to see it, I could hardly believe that a lioness was raising something it normally would eat.

smudgeoffudge · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:13 am

I cried the whole time I watched it. I knew the baby would either starve or become someone's meal. What was weird was the lioness went on try try to adopt another one. I think they said she adopted three, but none of them stayed with her as long as this one did. I felt so sorry for the lion because she was so lonely. People need to believe that animals have feelings to. Anyone who saw this would believe it.

I joined a live chat just now and the wildlife journalist was there. It quickly became a flame because lots of people just don't understand the nonintervention issue. I don't like to see animals starve either. I probably would break the rules myself. I understand that animals need to fear people and not depend on them. But they did try to give the lion some meat once, just a very small piece, but she didn't eat it anyway.

Lady Night · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:14 am

I would love to watch that. Your right it is sweet and sad at the same time...

AFI_Sorrow · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:24 am

Now I wish that I caught that on TV. It sounds so interesting, sad and beautiful. I think it's amazing when animals or even humans go against what is "supposed to be." It shows us that life is not what we expect and that there are magical things to uncover. While we think our species knows it all, has done it all and will continue to be great, we never really sit back and notice the small miracles. Friendship, love, those are all tiny miracles. And this lioness and her "baby" experienced just that.

Pretty amazing. Will it ever be on again? I'm a sucker for this sort of things, if you haven't noticed.

smudgeoffudge · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:36 am

Watch the Show
Tune in Saturday, March 12, at 10 p.m. ET for another airing of Heart of a Lioness.

The link I gave goes to the website where you can pretty much see the whole show if you watch all the little clips.

Full Metal Alchemist · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:32 am

If you want to see a sad yet wonderful thing, I HIGHLY reccomend the movie Gattaca.

One word: AWESOME.

Ginger Harp Seal Pup · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:40 am

Oh wow, that is wonderful! It's already brought tears to my eyes, I would have flooded the living room if I had seen the programme. You're right, it's sad and also wonderful. I've always liked big cats but I didn't know that sometimes they did things like this. It's truly marvellous.

I really hope that nothing happened to that lioness and that she's living a great life. Heh, that's the only thing I don't like about these programmes. when they've finished I'm always wondering "I wonder what they're doing now? I wonder if they're alright?" Hehe, yep, call me soppy if you want

floella_de_ville · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:08 pm

that is so sweet and so sad poor lion

ChromeFox · **Posts:** 333 **Joined:** Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:31 pm

smudgeoffudge wrote:

Watch the Show
Tune in Saturday, March 12, at 10 p.m. ET for another airing of Heart of a Lioness.

The link I gave goes to the website where you can pretty much see the whole show if you watch all the little clips.

I watched all the clips...you don't really get the whole program, and infuriatingly, not the ending. It's just "The oryx wanders off.........'ROAAAARRR!!' *end*"

I found some interesting extra info on Saba's (the British lady who narrates it) website:

Quote:

The baby tried to suckle from the lioness, and the lioness attempted to hunt once but quickly gave up when the oryx walked too far away. We heard from driver guides and rangers that on another ocassion when she went off to hunt, some cheetahs had grabbed the calf, whereupon the lioness came racing back and chased them off, saving its life. One of the rangers believes that the lioness came across the oryx shortly after its birth, but she had just eaten from a kill so was not hungry. He believes that the lioness licked off the afterbirth and that this triggered something in her brain to became its mother-protector.

The calf was utterly attached to the lioness, but it would consistently seek out oryx, associating them with mother and milk. Rangers reported that it had been leaving the lioness to go and suckle from its mother. We never saw this ourselves, but we did see it approach oryx on several occasions and be accepted by them. I believe that it is quite possible that this happened as we saw that the lioness would allow the baby to spend time with oryx. The mother would have stayed close by once she saw that the baby had not been eaten. I do not know how the baby could have survived if it had not been suckling from its mother. Dr. Mark Stanley Price - an oryx expert - thinks that it would not have survived for more than a few days without milk.

Bangel · **Posted:** Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:34 pm

Yes, it's cute and sad and wonderful.

But... honestly, I doubt the lioness did it just out of the kindness of her heart. Nature usually does not work that way. I wouldn't be surprised if the lioness had some sort of mental problem. I mean, regular lions just do not walk right up to prey and treat it as their young.

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That was the saddest & most wonderful thing I've ever se

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