What babies do in the animal kingdom, even when they know the end is near

Indian Express

30-07-2025

I watch wildlife documentaries (usually filmed in Africa) quite often, and am regularly amazed at the way the narrators carve intricate plots out of the footage they have. To keep the audience riveted there have to be cleverly planned hunts (usually with lions and painted wolves as stars), incredible chases, mighty takedowns, belligerent defences and, of course, plenty of blood and gore.
Lionesses plot their strategies with Machiavellian cunning, even daring to ambush elephants and wild buffalo after cunningly singling out their targets; leopards jump 30 feet down from trees on top of their prey; cheetahs take-off like FI racing cars, after an impala, only to lose them to the ever-present thieving hyenas. After a while you can anticipate pretty accurately what's about to happen. You know that the wildebeest and the zebra crossing a river are going to be attacked by crocodiles at some point and then viciously rolled over and torn to bits in the water by which time your emotional involvement begins to decline. You're not rooting for one side or the other as you watch dispassionately. Well, the predator has to eat (and feed its young) and the prey has to try to escape, to save its life, so it can feed its young.
But (thankfully) there is still one scenario which still moves you every time you see it. There we have a happy pride of lionesses, hunting successfully and bringing up their cubs, ruled over by a shaggy great lion whose chief duty is to eat, look after his hairdo, and, of course, protect the pride from outsiders, which he dutifully does. And there lies the rub, because the king is ageing and there at the edge of his territory emerges his nemesis, a pair of itinerant lion brothers, strong, young thugs, looking for territory, trouble and ladies. There are two ways this spools out: one, the ageing lion king takes one look at the intruders and beats a hasty retreat and two, he stays his ground and prepares to fight the final, bloody battle of his life to protect his lionesses.
The trouble really begins once the ageing king is vanquished – and the lionesses know it all too well. For now, the two intruders have only one thing on their mind: infanticide. The murder of the vanquished kings cubs, who by now, terrified by the battle, have scuttled into hiding the best they can. Their mothers come ferociously to their defence, ganging up against the victors but often are unsuccessful in driving them away. With vicious ruthlessness the intruders search the bushes and undergrowth (like the ED does, when they come visiting) and murder the babies one by one. It's not easy to watch a four or five-month old cub, valiantly trying to hold its own against this beast which is probably 50 times its size, flaying out with its tiny paws and fiercely yarring, as it is mercilessly shaken like a rag doll and taken down with a vicious snarl and a bite.
But there's not much time to grieve. Not for the lionesses at least because soon enough they come into season again, having lost their litters, which is exactly what the intruders and their new rulers wanted in the first place. Any cubs born, must be theirs and theirs alone. And soon enough there are new cubs for the lionesses to look after, the previous babies now long forgotten.
There are several animals which indulge in this kind of infanticide – wild dogs, leopards, brown bears, hyenas, grey wolves, langurs and even cats. Even zebra stallions are known to kick to death the foals of other stallions, if they are interested in the foal's mother. Some, like hyenas will actively hunt the pups or cubs of other species, such as wild dogs, which may be competitors for resources if allowed to mature.
Female cheetahs, apparently, have found a sneaky way out of this potentially murderous predicament. They mate with multiple males so that when the cubs are born, the males cannot be certain, if the cubs are theirs or not. And it certainly would not do to kill what could well be your own little sons or daughters. As it is cheetah cubs have an abysmal survival rate up to their first birthday, usually falling prey to other predators like hyenas and lions.
Watch a lioness look after her cubs – there is affection and care in spades. Watch lionesses greet each other and there is obvious affection between them. Even the great shaggy males will greet each other with rumbling purrs and head-rubbing.
But watch these same beasts hunt down the cubs of other fathers — there is a chilling mercilessness about them, a true Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde situation.
Sometimes, of course, a parent might kill and even eat its own progeny. If for instance it is under extreme stress: this happens quite often in zoos, with their small enclosed spaces and cold cement floors. Others may abandon sick or injured cubs, either knowing they are not likely to survive or are not worth 'investing' in at the cost of the others in the litter.
It is difficult to watch something tiny (and usually furry!) being taken down in this manner, all the while fighting valiantly in its corner. No little animal ever seems to just roll over and give up: As Atticus Finch said about courage, 'It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what'.
As for us: it looks like our own children are going to need a lot of that same courage.