Dear all:

My father was both a hunter and a rescuer of animals.  I had not realized that he passed 
on his propensity to rescue animals until my son's pet mistakes, which cost a fortune in 
vet bills even though they were sold for only $2 at the pet stores. Then I realized where I 
had developed that urge to feel responsible for a life form that you had taken from its 
own environment into "captivity".  

Among the many animals we had as children, there were a few wild animals and a few 
domesticated animals that abandoned their babies.  Mammals in the wild will abandon 
their babies under stress or if the babies are sick or damaged.  Some mammals have 
been known to eat their young.  Among the domesticated mammals we raised, the most 
notable abandonment came from the bunny. We have no idea how one of the two male 
bunnies managed to impregnate her not once, but twice --- when we kept them all in 
separate cages and only let them out one at a time.  Her first litter was a miserable 
failure --- all of them died because she did not sit still to feed them.  Her second litter 
succeeded with some supplementation from my mother with an eye dropper (which may 
have done more harm than good).  It never really dawned on me until later that most 
people didn't know that the first litter with a domesticated animal is often the litter with 
the highest mortality rate (if not as in the case of the bunny --- a complete failure).

You have to look no further than the book "So that's what They're For" to realize that the 
impact goes all the way up the primate chain to gorillas.  The gorilla in the Ohio zoo 
failed completely with her first infant --- she had no idea what to do with it and it died.  
The second time around, she had repeat demonstrations by La Leche League human 
mothers and needed a refresher after giving birth.

Then, if you move on to "so-called" traditional societies, infanticide in the early weeks of 
an infant's life does happen (and even does in so-called modern societies).  I met a group 
of anthropologies in Puno Peru who claimed that the local practice was to put newborns in 
a corner of the room for three days and if the newborn survived they would then care for 
the newborn.  If you realized how harsh life can be in the altiplano, it makes a certain 
sense that survival strategies could sometimes be harsh.

Nature is not always kind -- it is indifferent --- and that sometimes leads to bad 
outcomes for individuals regardless of their species. 

So, I'm not sure what's done in nature is always the best analogy.  We SHOULD as 
humans be able to apply our larger brains towards more effective parenting strategies.

Best, Susan Burger

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