http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDJ2kW2s5g

Thanks for sharing this link Pippa. I think these instances are happening more often now of the big cats "mothering" another species.

In Daphne Sheldrick's October update regarding the Voi orphanage she states: "The Keepers acquired yet another baby buffalo orphan on the 22nd, but this time a very unusual one, for it had been “adopted” by a lioness below the Voi Safari Lodge, its buffalo mother having fallen victim to lions. Astonishingly, in a similar event as to that which took in Samburu National Reserve a few years back, when a lioness made international headlines by adopting a newborn oryx, this Voi lioness chose to do the same though with a newborn buffalo, mothering it, protecting it and even trying to carry it as she would her own cub when the Keepers arrived to rescue it. This dramatic incident was first witnessed by visiting tourists, who motivated by compassion for the bemused baby buffalo, called in our Keepers to rescue the calf. This they managed to do, but it had suffered head injuries when the lioness tried to carry it away. Obviously, the mothering instinct occasionally masks the innate killer instinct of female Big Cats whose normal role in Nature is that of natural selection – to dispatch the sick, the weak and the maimed ensuring that only good genes perpetuate a species. Were such incidents not able to be verified photographically through modern technology, no doubt Science would remain exceedingly skeptical about the authenticity of lay-folk spoken word. Unhappily, this particular buffalo calf later died, the trauma it had suffered and the head wound being more than it could withstand."

It would be intersting to find out if the majority of these instances of cats mothering another species are from young females who have never had babies of their own. One would think that an older female who had had a litter of her own and who had made kills before would not act in the same way. Just a guess.