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Leopard Kills Mother Baboon, but tries to save Baboon Baby from Hyenas!

dailymail.co.uk — "She had killed the mother primate, but then found this live new-born on the ground. The little baboon called out, and we thought we were going to hear a major crunch and the leopard smacking its lips, but instead the baby baboon put its paws out and walked towards the young leopard...

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  • deepdiggdude, on 10/12/2007, -11/+48Desert for later?
    • PatrickFisher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34Sahara or Gobi?
    • 1021, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Reminds me of Tarzan, except with a baboon.
    • All4not, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Delayed Gratification

      A few years later and the leopard's investment will amass quite a killing.
    • TheCount, on 10/12/2007, -2/+56"The film crew kept watch through the night. "Several times, the baby baboon fell out of the tree," says Joubert. "Each time, Legadema raced down to pick her up before the hyenas descended, and carried her back up to safety."

      "Tragically, when morning came, the camera team realised that the tiny baboon was no longer showing signs of life. "We think it was simply too small to survive the night without its natural mother and the sustenance she could provide," says Joubert."

      O RLY? The several falls from the tree had nothing at all to do with the baby baboon dying, eh?
    • Pile, on 10/12/2007, -17/+19This is a good example of how there is an inherent moral nature built into all creatures. I'm sure that Leopard hasn't asked Jesus for forgiveness, yet he's demonstrating a level of morality that many delusional humans think can only be handed down from a supreme being.
    • ThePhilomath, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25"This is a good example of how there is an inherent moral nature built into all creatures."

      Actually, it's just good evidence that leopards have instincts to look after animals that resemble their own cubs. This instinct increases the chances that her own genes will be passed on, but the process isn't perfect and sometimes the leopard can be mistaken.

      Morality is essentially arbitrary; always has been and always will be. You need to learn about other cultures if you don't believe that.
    • ez12a, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"This is a good example of how there is an inherent moral nature built into all creatures."
      Might I mention the Milgram experiments?

      "I'm sure that Leopard hasn't asked Jesus for forgiveness, yet he's demonstrating a level of morality that many delusional humans think can only be handed down from a supreme being."
      God doesnt "hand down" morality...He sets a standard. It's up to the person if they want to follow it or not. People don't have to believe in God to show compassion and love. And...morals would not exist without a base or primitive set of standards.
    • stonebear, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@pile1: It’s a girl leopard, parson, and it was hormones that determined her behavior.
    • ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Or it simply felt bad about leaving the baby motherless. Leopards kill baby cheetah cubs all of the time, so why did this leopard choose to protect a baby when leopards, male or female, have no problem killing other animals' babies? There's a special on TV about a lioness who raises an orphaned antelope as its own, so it's extraordinary but not absolutely unique for predators to care for orphaned young.

      Moral reductionism is convenient on the broad scale, especially in the absence of actual knowledge of how the animal kingdom functions. "Morals don't exist, and if they do they are reactionary social constructs in response to basic instincts."

      Animals are similar to humans. Some are far more empathetic than others. Humans have developed elaborate cultural practices, but calling the raising of a baby that's not your own nothing but a maternal instinct ignores unfairly how absolutely extraordinary the action was. It denies that all animals, human or otherwise, have individual beliefs and natures.

      Yeah, I know, it sounds like a hippy thing to say, but it's also from years of Discovery channel. People whine because other "anthropomorphize" animals, but I whine because others "denaturalize" animals by making them essentially mindless robots that eat and crap and die, not necessarily in that order. Anyway, animals have instincts, and mothers have maternal instincts, but mothers also kill their own babies and frequently kill and eat the babies of others. There's far more to this than simply, "Oh, look, the instinct switch got turned on."
    • ThePhilomath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Zenmojo

      It's a question of parsimony: Do you attribute the leopard with a complex set of emotions of compassion for the baby baboon, or do you explain its behaviour in terms of natural selection.

      In this case, you're making a lot of assumptions when you think that leopards have emotions just as we do. Mainly, there's no good reason that a leopard would feel sorry; they are not social animals, as we are, and do not have a reason to have complex feelings of regret and compassion - it does them no good.

      I'm not saying that animals are mindless robots; I plan to pursue a phd on the area of cognition, and I might very well specialize in animal cognition so that I can help find out just what animals DO know - I suspect it's more than what many scientists assume. I am simply saying that in this case it just doesn't make any sense to think that the leopard felt sorry for the baby.
    • transeunte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've seen that scene in a NatGeo show, and it's actually quite moving. It's funny to see the young leopard developing maternal instincts at such an early age. The rest of the documentary is worth seeing as well.
    • hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1and for those of you Diggers who dont know..............the lioness one ended with a male lion killing it........
      (the antelope).........
    • skankyBacon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Agree with ThePhilomath. It's called Occam's Razor...don't invent complex methods of explaining something when a much simpler explanation exists.
    • DivideByZer0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It probably happened for the same reason we think that a baby anything is cute. Bigger eyes, larger forehead, as well as probably a number of other visual and movement cues that are coded into most animals' DNA to care for their own young. It could be that this leopard had an overexpression of something affecting maternal instincts, and it's even possible it had some kind of perceptual defect or deficit. It has nothing to do with an inherent 'moral nature' built into animals. This event is the exception, not the rule.

      Also, they've done studies with the eyes and forehead thing to see what is the optimal 'cuteness' level. You can't push humans very far (doll-wise), becuase we're more used to seeing babies of our own species (and we're most highly tuned to respond to babies of our species). Animals, on the other hand, we can push it a lot farther. If you push it too far, though, it starts to look ghoulish. I think the animals they managed to get the biggest forehead and eyes for in the study without it looking ghoulish was a donkey stuffed animal.
    • Ozzy73, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Those of you that say that the falls were what killed the baby baboon in the end are wrong. The baby baboon died from the cold of the night. The documentary is called "Eye of the leopard" and it is really worth watching.
      Here is the program descriptoin
      http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/eyeoftheleopard/description.html
  • daeyeth, on 10/12/2007, -13/+8That's adorable. Mother nature is beautiful.
  • deepdiggdude, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2er uh... dessert
  • freebirdpat, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Do you want this snack to-go?
  • rjani57, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6the TV crew continue to check on the leopard. will be interesting to observe how she reacts next time she faces a baboon as prey?
  • swooshonln, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Of course hes defending it from the other animals, why would he give up perfectly good meat?
  • statix, on 10/12/2007, -8/+25Title is misleading! Thought this was the new Lepoard OS.

    /sarcasm
    • heliox, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Animals don't kill...Mac OSs Kill
    • PabloMac, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10If the Leopard is the new Mac OS, guess who the "mother baboon" is.
      :P
    • archerx, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7your mom?
    • PabloMac, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1Wow, archerx - great zinger! You sure got me there! Ouch!

      Back to the topic at hand...
    • jtizzle, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Mother Baboon = DOS?
    • ez12a, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Well, I assume the "baby" baboon is Windows XP, because Bootcamp is designed to run it (though i know it can run Vista as well). Its in the text file with Bootcamp. So the Leopard is indifferent, yet harbors some sort of opening in its heart for it.

      the mother baboon, or Windows Baboon (Vista), is the most threatening. So Leopard kills it.
  • adsoftheworld, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7This is normal behavior of all mammals. It is encoded within us to protect the young, even if it is not our species. That is why we find cute and cuddly any small animal whether it is a kitten or a small elephant.
  • adolfojp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1746828.stm

    The lioness and the oryx. An even better story. :-)
  • Steveo117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12*groans* eeeerrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaa*groans* CANT HELP IT, TRYING TO FIGHT IT, OHHHH NOOOOOO HERE IT COMES...................awwwwww how cute.
  • adolfojp, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4Gotta love some of the comments in the article.
    ----
    For leopard substitute a socialist goverment.
    For baby baboon substitute todays children.
    The leopard killed the parent and thinks it will do a better job child rearing.

    - Leslie Mann, Houston Texas
    • dleifelohcs, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1And in the end the baby baboon (child) dies.
    • hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4probably from reading (& believing) the daily mail
      hahaha


  • rkoopmann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ahhh...a nice feel-good story to start the day.
    • TheCount, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Yeah, except for the death mother baboon and dead baby baboon, of course.
  • ATH025, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Video or it didn't happen. =D
  • rodrigo74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ah the joys of anthropomorphism..
    • stonebear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Seems pervasive, perhaps there is a good reason for it. Maybe so we can care about other creatures and not lay utter waste to the earth. I guess it would fall under survival adaptations. Furries FTW! :^)
    • ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe "anthropomorphism" is "animalism," but we're too full of ourselves to realize how broad these actions apply? Dogs nurse tigers, deer play with rabbits, hippos give mouth-to-mouth to gazelle, groupers team up with moray eels to hunt and even give up their meal to the eels without a fight, ants farm aphids, wolves raise human babies, dwarf pygmy horses hang out with dogs. So the more we experience animals displaying attributes such as interspecies social cooperation, the more we are assured that they are incapable of human traits such as compassion?

      I wonder if some people were born heartless or if it shrivels over time into a little thumping nub....

      We are all aware that humans are capable of absolute savagery. Are people that desperate to be unique on the planet that they have to deny animal empathy so that we aren't revealed for what we are ... just another tool-making species...?
  • entity3sf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Interesting. My two Rottweillers cornered and attacked a Possum. Later when I was in the garage I heard little squeaking sounds. They had taken the Possum's pups away from the mother, and with their powerful jaws gently carried them to their bed in the garage. I guess they thought they were saving them.
    • PacoDG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It could have went worse http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16178319/ :(
    • miggie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2entity3sf
      did you keep the possums as pets or send them to the zoo?
    • entity3sf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sorry Miggie, called SPCA, there was nothing to be done. The mother got away by, well, playing possum, and never came back for her brood. I took them to a creek where the Possums come from and left them there. Probably would have been more humane to just put them down. Hindsight is 20/20.
    • entity3sf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Holy Shyte Paco, that's a tragedy.
  • anniseast, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0desert!!!! inaccurate non-pun - it even says in the article this took place on a verdant flood plain located on Botswana (South Africa) delta

    for gosh sakes

    very interesting story and touched me - but the leopard kills baboons and will continue to act according to its nature as an adult

    personally it's much richer to just appreciate what happened in that moment, I think, and not read too much into it
  • GrayV, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6My mate is a pig-farmer and he takes bloody good care of his pigs. Feeds them lots and gets a vet in if they're ill. They are the best looked after pigs in the country, right up to the point where they're big enough to be slaughtered. We'll see how clever that leopard really is.
    • billlyboobs34, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I totally agree, this leopard is smart enough to know that if you kill all the babies you will have no big baboons to prey upon. Save the children to maintain a future food supply.
  • xmpcray, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Wait till the baby baboon grows up and takes her revenge ;)
  • Dinggo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0a very good story
  • drttol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the documentary, Eye of The Leopard, is available on TorrentSpy.

    http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/879848/NatGeo_Eye_of_the_Leopard_PDTV_BiTSrg
  • modusop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How many people took a second look at this just because Leopard was in the title?
  • foomojive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dugg just because it's such a different thing to see on digg
  • cocoamix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've heard of relationships that were doomed to failure, but this one takes the cake.
  • cfuentea, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Just saving his FOOD!
  • xtrememotion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"...and she stumbled around in the sunlight, falling over as if she were drunk."

    rough night in the den...good thing it didnt have to work that day
  • ord0x, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Save the baboon, save the world.
  • NakedSnake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have read other reports of animals "adopting" other species' babies, but most of the time those animals have been domesticated.
  • wildmXranat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1good story. nuff said.
  • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Come on Baby, look what Mummy brought for you... another.. baboon.
  • runmaximus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Don't big cats bring their food into trees to keep from scavengers (like hyenas) instinctively anyway? As upsetting as it might be, the baby was as good as dead, she knew that.
  • nullcodes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1People on here who have never even seen a leopard in real life (even in the zoo) are making up their minds on what the leopard's thoughts and intentions were. Fact is, we have no true way of knowing. It's the same with humans, each individual acts a certain way but intents aren't always clear.
    • runmaximus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yeah but some level of intentions are basic to survival, taking care of another species' young flies in the face of that.
  • SteveDeGroof, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Given that the leopard didn't eat the young baboon even after it died, it's unlikely it was trying to save it for later. It seems more likely that it was protecting the baboon. The article mentions that the leopard is now pregnant but gave no indication of whether it was at the time of the baboon incident. It's entirely possible that the leopard's behavior was affected by hormonal changes due to the pregnancy.
  • stonebear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As a role reversal and dramatic sidenote, I give you...

    Duma
    http://dumamovie.warnerbros.com/
    http://www.bitenova.nl/tt/v2aae

    Heartwarming and great for the kids.
  • zummerzet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1By the Daily Mail's standards its a good thing the baby baboon wasn't an immigrant worker!
  • TheZorch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is the same reason why you'll sometimes see a dog accept kittens into her litter. Its the maternal instinct.
  • hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1read the (manchester) guardian
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/

    .....or the times ....or the independent

    but not the daily mail - its a tabloid -it specifically caters to the prejudices of its readers
    it doesnt apologise about it either
    thats understood in uk


    p.s. beware of the leopard (HHGTTG)
    • rjani57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1offer something usefull. the story was widely reportd in other journals.
  • nikoniko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My favorite documentary scene ever:

    A hippo and her baby share a watering hole with a bunch of crocodiles. Crocodiles are afraid of hippos, so they leave them alone.

    A gazelle comes to drink at the edge of the water and is seized by several crocodiles, who start splashing water everywhere and making a lot of noise as they fight over the carcass.

    Mother hippo is trying to take a nap, so she is annoyed at being disturbed. She picks up her baby in her mouth, wades right into the midst of the crocodiles, and places her baby on the gazelle carcass. Then she goes back to where she was.

    The crocodiles, if not fearful of the baby hippo itself, know what the mother will do to them if they mess with it, so they reluctantly leave the carcass alone.

    Mother hippo takes her nap! =D

    I've only seen it on television, but if anybody recognizes the scene and knows of an online clip, please let me know.
  • CyberGhost, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1With suck diggs, I always expect a video, now where is it?
    • hiPpymIck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 " hippo , crocodile " ...youtube search:-
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxSvFYph0u8
      .... doent match desc.above ....seems like hippos make a habit of it .........poor crocs! hahahah
    • nikoniko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, seen that one, too. Not the one I was describing, but thanks for looking anyway, though! It was from some sort of "amazing animals" show that was on TV some 10 years ago. I have it on videotape, but no longer have a VCR. :(
  • gabrielg01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Leopards don't have refrigerators, so if they want to have some fresh meat the next day, they better keep it alive.
    • ord0x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well that high up it could get a lot of direct sunlight. She might need to salt it a bit, but I can see some jerky being made.
  • ebertek, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpfvkeo0KBc
  •  

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