A panda at a zoo in China is inconsolable afer accidentally killing her baby.
BEIJING – Staff at a zoo in southwest China are in mourning after a sleep-deprived panda dropped her two-day-old baby and crushed it to death, local media reported on Friday.
“It was very sudden, but also unavoidable,” Guo Wei, panda department chief at Chongqing city zoo in the southwestern region of Chongqing, told the Chongqing Business News daily.
Ya Ya, a seven-year-old panda and new mother of twins, “appeared tired” when nursing the younger cub in a patch of grass, the paper said.
Her head sagged, her paws separated and her baby fell to the ground next to her. The panda then rolled on to her side and crushed her baby beneath her.
The tragedy occurred because she hadn’t slept or eaten properly since giving birth, Guo said, adding that Ya Ya lacked motherhood experience.
According to Guo, the zoo had tried on several occasions to separate the cub from its mother for their safety, but Ya Ya “was very cautious” and would “roar and bare her teeth” at zoo-keepers.
The elder of the twins was in good health and being cared for, zoo officials said.
But Ya Ya had proved inconsolable, wailing and looking for her baby after its body was taken away from her.
“Pandas who lose their young tend to be depressed for a month or so,” Guo said, adding that the zoo would assign people to care for her and provide special food to improve her mood.
[MSNBC: Panda Crushes New-Born Cub]
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Heart.Break.
this is SO incredibly sad. :( i hadn’t heard about it until finding this post. *sniff*
thats sad
This reminds me of two similar stories. One is of several wolves in a pack and their lowest ranking male who was their whipping boy. They were mean to him, harassing him, but they never cause injury and still supported him. He was essential to their pack because his behavior would placate the others. He did not show signs of wanting to permanently leave, but one day, he wandered slightly away from the pack and was attacked by a mountain lion. The other wolves searched for him for days. When they found the area with his strongest scent, they howled, calling out to him. It was not a rallying to battle call, or an offensively defensive howl, but a call to round up their pack. They continued on like this for a while. For three, or four weeks, the pack did not move as much and they certainly did not play (apparently, even though adult wolves don’t play much, this particular pack did at first snowfall, and it was still snowy). The pack ate less and continued to sniff around where his scent was strongest for weeks. Even though they were wild animals who had to be concerned with survival, they took three, or four weeks out to do things that are a waste of energy in terms of survival. It’s difficult to claim that they were not mourning their fallen comrade. The other story is of elephants; also wild. A herd who had a member who ate farmers’ crops was shot and killed and then stored in a large shed, or warehouse, or something. Her herd seemed upset by this (likely since elephants seem to have death rites) and decided that it was worth it to barge through an electric fence, break down the door of the building she was being kept in and (I think) bring back her remains, even though they were being shot at for doing so. That certainly can’t be attributed to instinct.