Mother's Day 2017
We celebrate Mother's Day every year to show our appreciation and gratitude towards our mothers for all the hard work they do every day to care for us. Less noticed by humans is how extraordinary other animal mothers are in taking care of their offspring, such as the extremes to which they will go to ensure their young's safety.
There are countless examples of extraordinary mothers in the natural world, and a few come to mind automatically:
Lionesses band together in nursery-like groups in order to better protect their cubs, for when the pride is taken over by a new male he will kill the old male's cubs so the females will go back into heat. This will enable the new male to start his own bloodline in the pride, but regardless of who the father is the mothers will fight relentlessly against the larger aggressors to save her cubs.
Polar bears give birth during the winter months while in hibernation, and sometimes have to feed their cubs milk even though the mother has not eaten herself for many months.
Salmon travel by instinctive memory against river currents for miles to their spawning grounds, where they themselves had been born. Against all odds (including grizzlies, disease, and exhaustion), most survive the journey but of those survivors most will die after the spawning is complete, thus giving the ultimate sacrifice for the next generation.
Probably the most incredible, however, are the chimpanzees that are such socially oriented creatures that they will adopt orphan chimps and raise them as their own. This adoption strategy is demonstrated in the DisneyNature feature film, "Chimpanzee". These adoptive parents seem to recognize that the survival of their young, regardless of if the child is biologically related to them or not, is still essential in the continuation of their species.
A couple of years ago, I witnessed a mother and her ducklings in a courtyard between two buildings on the University of Notre Dame campus. Apparently, the mother Mallard had nested there, and has been doing so for years now. The building staff were aware of this situation, and provided crushed corn and fresh water for the ducks, although they should be able to find everything they need in the underbrush of the courtyard.
At the time, I spoke to one of those staff members as he was refilling the fresh water tubs, and he said that there was no need to disturb the nest and attempt to move the ducklings until needed. Usually, they wait until the ducklings are 4 weeks old, and then a group of 5 to 7 adults help shuffle the family out of the courtyard and down to the nearby lake, where the youngsters can grow up on their own in their natural habitat. Below are pictures I took of the group when I got the chance.
"From the crawling ant to the leaping antelope", every mother raises her children a little differently. Some are more distant, such as spiders, who produce hundreds of young at a time, or too-close-for-comfort, such as sharks, who will sometimes attempt to eat their young soon after birth. These are more like clockmaker parents, who simply set life into motion and let natural selection take it from there. Others are more invested, such as kangaroos, who as marsupials carry in a stomach pouch their joey until fully weaned, or rhinoceroses, who have an 18 month gestation period. We as humans would fall into the latter category for the most part, since in general we house and feed our young until they go to college and move out on their own.
An excellent website that reports on new moms is ZooBorns. They are either sought after by, or seek out themselves zoos and aquariums around the world which have just acquired new animal babies to their collection. I felt a need to make a shout-out to their site because it offers an excellent bridge between people who may not be the biggest animal lovers but can appreciate an adorable baby (animal) picture, and the cute accounts of young wildlife.