Animal Documentary

Why am I sharing this documentary?

Actually, I like domestic animals that can be kept as a pet. They are tamed and sometimes can become a family member. I don't like wildlife animals so much because they are untamed and fierce. In my opinion, the lion, in particular, is one of the most fiercest animals in the wildlife. When lions happen to come across a prey, they take immediate action to grab it and rib the body apart. However, to my surprise, this documentary seems to totally break down my bias against lions. It is a completely unheard of situation of a predator that adopt the prey. This is a miracle to see the lioness and the baby oryx antelope, one of the oddest animal bonds ever seen, walk together, lie down under the trees and can't lose each other. Definitely, it's remarkably moving to watch.
   
Summary of the documentary:

In the year 2001, the unthinkable happened. The lioness adopted antelope cub and was regarding it as its own. This fact gave Saba Douglas-Hamilton, a wildlife conservationist for the saving elephants' trust, a big shock. "I can't believe my ears when I'm first told about this adoption. That's absolutely nonsense. Give it a few hours and the lion will definitely eat the cub," she said with stun.

However, what seems like a touching story was actually a deadlock, because the solitary lioness was kept from haunting, so the baby was left starving without milk. In addition, every oryx, by nature, potentially sensed to its mother, its food and its life, so the baby oryx tried consistently to rejoin other oryxes. However, the cub wondered, looking for its herd while the lioness followed. The lioness obviously wouldn't allow the baby go certain distance away. Every time the lioness just took it back again.

What would drive a predator to defy her instincts and then danger her life? Saba was quite confused, so she wrote to many lion experts to get some balanced views about what was happening. One of the lion expert was Craig Packer. What they think would happen was that the lioness actually went through quite traumatic loss which was meant she had once lost her baby. This experience sparked her obsessive-compulsive behavior. Thus, when she happened to come across the baby antelope, instead of seeing food, she saw a baby.

Although the lioness was willing to have this kind of experience, she no longer had a companionship and had to kick out of the pride. These could cause a problem. The problem was that the solitary lioness was all by itself and the world was surrounded by groups of lions. The lioness had to figure out how she was going to get from one place to another without being spotted, how she is going to feed herself without being discovered, and the vulnerable situation by her neighbors. The lioness lived a life full of terror.

One day they came to river to get some water but of course the river was the most dangerous place where predators hid behind bushes to wait for preys. Even having the lion as a protector, there is no guarantee for its safe. Just a few seconds, a huge male lion jumped out off the bushes and grabbed it at that instant. The lioness was clearly terrified by the male lion but she acted exactly as if she was a mother losing her cub. She even couldn't leave the scene. We could all feel the anguish in her, desperately trying to save cub but unable to take on the battle with the male lion. The next day, she went out immediately to kill an ampala and fed herself. So, it could infer that the lioness was totally functional in terms of being a predator. It just didn't acquaint food with the baby oryx.

The loss of baby oryx didn't end up here. Within a month, the lioness actually adopted five and more cubs. In Craig Packer's opinion, the relationship with the cub was not quite that of the friend or even the parent. The lioness was more like a jailer, in that she just wanted to control the harmless animal and keep it close by. But still Saba believed the part in mother's instinct in every animal. Her concern for the baby was greater than her hunger for food. No matter what drives the lioness to behave like this, through the bond between the lioness and the antelope, it tells the animal's ability to feel complex in emotions.