Woman breastfeeding tiger cubs in Myanmar
AFP/Yahoo ^ | Sun Apr 3, 5:57 PM ET
Posted on 04 April 2005 03:07:02 by martin_fierro
Woman breastfeeding tiger cubs in Myanmar
Sun Apr 3, 5:57 PM ET
YANGO (AFP) - A lactating woman in Myanmar has volunteered to breastfeed a pair of endangered Bengal tiger cubs recently born at a Yangon zoo and separated from their aggressive mother.
The two-week-old cubs, a male and a female, were taken from their mother Noah Noah after she killed the third cub in her litter, prompting veterinarians to engage in alternative childcare, the semi-official Myanmar Times weekly reported in its edition to be published Monday.
Hla Htay, 40, a relative of a Yangon Zoological Gardens staffer and a mother of three including a seven-month-old baby, stepped in when she learned the cubs needed breast milk to survive.
"I felt sorry for them so I decided to feed them before their teeth grow," she told the newspaper.
The cubs were the first born at the zoo for 16 years. Veterinarian Kyaw Myo Hlaing said they were being bottle-fed along with Hla Htay's half-hour breastfeeding sessions four times a day, the report said.
The cubs are to go on public display in two month's time.
Noah Noah and her mate were among two pairs of tigers sent from Thailand under an animal exchange program in 2001.
One year ago Myanmar's military government created the world's largest tiger reserve to protect its big cats, 250 of which remain in the wild.
Retrieved at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1376784/posts on the13th of December 2012
THE TELEGRAPH - Woman breastfeeds newborn tiger cubs
12:01AM BST 04 Apr 2005
A Burmese woman is breastfeeding two tiger cubs at a zoo in Rangoon after they were removed from their aggressive mother.
Hla Htay, 40, who has three children, the youngest seven months old, offered her services after the Bengal tiger cubs' mother, Noah Noah, killed the third member of her litter.
The two others, a male and a female, were taken from her and now receive bottle feeds as well as Hla Htay's milk four times a day.
"I felt sorry for them so I decided to feed them before their teeth grow," she told the Myanmar Times, a privately-owned English-language paper in the capital.
The cubs were born at the Rangoon zoo a fortnight ago, the first there for 16 years. The Bengal tiger, Panthera tigris, is listed as endangered on the World Conservation Union's red list, with the global population estimated at fewer than 2,500.
A tenth of them live in Burma, where they are under threat from poachers seeking to feed markets for traditional medicines and trophies.
Big cat skins are easily obtained at markets on the Thai-Burmese border, with snow leopards the most commonly available. Dealers say that tiger parts are becoming more expensive and hard to obtain because of their dwindling supply.
Noah Noah and her mate were one of two pairs of tigers sent to the zoo from Thailand four years ago as part of an animal exchange.
Retrieved at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/1487115/Woman-breastfeeds-newborn-tiger-cubs.html on the 13th of December 2012
Why is a woman breastfeeding a tiger?
BY Ian Sample
The Guardian, Thursday 7 April 2005 12.21 BST
Call it a touching act of altruism or a curious assertion of maternal capability, but the bottom line is 40-year-old Hla Htay is breastfeeding a Bengal tiger cub.
Two cubs, a male and a female, were taken from their mother at Yangon Zoological Gardens in Burma after she killed the third in her litter. The two are now being raised on bottled milk as well as Hla Htay's milk four times a day.
Ms Htay, the partner of an employee at the zoo, told local newspapers this week she felt sorry for the animals and offered her services, at least until the cubs grew teeth.
Among animals, such expressions of cross-species nursing are not uncommon, says Walter Hurley, professor of lactation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Often, we'll hear of females that adopt young from different species," he says. They include dogs that nurse cats and cats that seem happy to be suckled by hedgehogs.
Such behaviour isn't always confined to wild animals. In 2001, the search for a missing 16-month-old baby in Lorestan, Iran, ended three days later when the baby was found safe and well in a bear's den. Experts concluded the bear had breastfed the infant.
Raising animals on milk from another species is not without its problems, though. "Milk differs wildly in composition between species, but something is usually better than nothing," says Hurley. For example, cow milk is typically up to 5% fat, while seal milk is around 50% fat.
Thanks to its high lactose content, human milk is among the sweetest, and compared with tiger milk, it lacks both fat and protein. Hurley says those deficiences, while secondary concerns if the cubs' lives are at stake, could well hinder their proper development and growth.
Taina Strike, a vet at the Zoological Society of London, has helped rear tiger cubs and says sufficient fat and protein in milk is crucial — the animals can put on 1kg a day when they are growing youngsters. In the past, there have been cases where elephants raised on milk with too little calcium have broken bones because of the weight they have to support.
Breastfeeding can also change an animal's behaviour later in life, leaving them social misfits, Strike adds.
If Ms Htay sticks to her offer of only breastfeeding until the cubs grow teeth, she won't be at it long. Tiger cubs grow teeth within weeks of being born, says Strike. "I still feel sorry for the woman though. Their sharp claws will be pummelling her."
As to why Ms Htay has offered her services, when bottled milk could do just as well? "I don't even want to go there," says Strike.
Retrieved at http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/07/thisweekssciencequestions on the 13th of December 2012
Burmese mother breastfeeds tiger cubs
Updated
Hla Htay has three hungry infants to feed these days - a seven-month old baby boy and two Bengal tiger cubs.
Three times a day, the Burma housewife goes to the Yangon Zoo where she breastfeeds the hungry black-striped, orange-brown cubs rejected by their natural mother.
"The cubs are just like my babies," Hla Htay told Fuji TV as as one of the baby big cats suckled her breast.
"It's not scary at all," she said of the 45-minute feeds.
"I needed to do something for the cubs because I felt really sorry for them".
Three cubs were born at the zoo in mid-March, but their mother killed one and refused to nurse the others. Veterinarians rescued the other two but had little success bottle feeding them.
"They had some difficulties sucking the nipple on the bottle. When we tried to get the cubs to suck a lady's breast, it was alright," said a veterinarian.
The zoo says the breastfeeding will stop by the end of April or when the cubs start teething - whichever comes first.
-Reuters
Retrieved at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-04-22/burmese-mother-breastfeeds-tiger-cubs/1556602 on the 13th of December 2012
However...the Cubs died
Breastfeeding tiger cubs dead
From correspondents in rangoon
May 12, 2005
From: Reuters
TWO Bengal tiger cubs breastfed for weeks by a Rangoon housewife have died of heat and dehydration, a Burma newspaper has reported.
The cubs drew worldwide attention when Hla Htay, a mother of a baby boy, answered a plea for help from Rangoon zoo and fed the cats three times a day after they were rejected by their tigress mother.
But the cubs – a male and female born on March 17 – did not take well to human milk and they grew weaker as temperatures soared in the hot season.
The male died on May 3, six days after his sister perished.
"The main causes of death were scorching weather and lack of milk from the natural mother," Dr Khin Maung Win of the Rangoon Zoological Garden told the Burmese-language Interview Journal.
"We did all we could to save them.
"They were kept in an air-conditioned room but their livers could not accept human milk."
Three cubs were born at the zoo, but their mother killed one and refused to nurse the others.
After bottlefeeding failed, the zoo put out a call for breastfeeding mothers.
Retrieved at http://www.orientexpat.com/forum/1273-woman-to-breastfeed-tiger-cubs-in-myanmar/ on the 13th of December 2012
Tiger cubs breastfed by woman die in Burma
Two Bengal tiger cubs that were breastfed by a woman for nearly six weeks have died of dehydration in a zoo in Burma, according to a report.
The cubs were taken from their mother after she killed one of their siblings and refused to nurse them. Hla Hla, aged 40, the mother of a seven-month-old baby and relative of an employee at Rangoon zoo, had volunteered to breastfeed the cubs when bottle feeding failed.
“We tried our best to save their lives but they have been deprived of their natural mother’s milk, and their livers could not accept human milk,” according to the Interview journal, quoting Dr Khin Maung Win of the Rangoon Zoological Garden.
Their diets were supplemented with powdered milk and vitamin drops in the last week of April, and they were put into intensive care.
“We kept the tiger cubs in an air-conditioned room but they died of heat and dehydration,” he told the journal. He said the female cub died on April 27, and the male on May 3.
The cubs were among three born at the zoo March 17, to a Bengal tiger, Noah Noah, and her mate, who were sent from Thailand under an animal exchange programme in 2001. The cubs were the first Bengal tigers born at the zoo in 16 years.
The dead cubs will be stuffed and put on display at a museum, the journal reported.
Burma , which has the largest number of tigers in the world after India, is home to two species – the Bengal and the Indochinese.
Burma ’s tiger population has plunged drastically to 150 or fewer in recent years from an estimated 3,000 nearly 25 years ago.
Retrieved at http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/tiger-cubs-breastfed-by-woman-die-in-burma-202216.html on the 13th of December 2012
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