Grieving mother tiger adopts baby pigs-Fiction!

Grieving Mother Tiger Caring for Piglets in Tiger Skins-Fiction!

Summary of the eRumor:
Several pictures of an adult tiger seeming to be mothering some piglets wrapped in tiger skins. The email says that the pictures are from a zoo in California where the mother tiger had lost triplets and the grieving was so bad that it began to affect her health. A search for surrogate cubs was fruitless so the zoo decided to capitalize on one species sometimes rearing the young of another species and brought in some orphaned piglets, wrapped them in tiger skins, and accomplished a feat never seen in a zoo before. One email refers to the tiger as "Mother of the Year."

The Truth:
The pictures are not from a zoo in California but the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand, a popular attraction that boasts of 200 tigers, 100,000 crocodiles, trained pigs, elephants, and other animals. The zoo features creative shows and displays of animals including these pictures of an adult tiger with piglets dressed like tiger cubs. One of the goals of the zoo is to demonstrate how animals of different species can live peacefully together. One of the experiments was introducing baby piglets to a mother tiger (who herself had been nursed by a pig) and it worked. At one time the mother tiger nursing piglets was in an enclosure next to an enclosure where a sow was nursing baby tigers. The zoo says those cubs grew faster from the pig's milk.

The story about the California zoo, the grieving mother tiger, and the orphaned piglets is a hoax that somebody decided to attach to the pictures.

Updated 12/4/06

A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:

In a zoo in California , a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.
The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health,
although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.
After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?
Take a look...you won't believe your eyes

Now, please tell me one more time.........why can't the world get along?.