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On Mother's Day, honour animal mothers too

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The bond between a mother and child is unique and incomparable. As we celebrate this relationship on Mother's Day this Sunday, Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have appealed to people to stop and consider the non-human mothers whose children are snatched away from them every day.

Puppies and kittens are whisked away from their mothers when they are eight weeks old or even younger to feed a flourishing trade in "cute trendy pets''. No one considers the anxiety and grief it causes both to the mother and its offspring. The young ones of all species crave for security and protection that is best provided by their mothers.

For anyone doubting `mother's love' in the animal kingdom, here are few example: A few years ago a cat named Scarlet made headlines when she risked her life by re-entering a burning building five times to rescue her kittens one-by-one. Even though her eyes were blistered shut and her paws were burned, she did not rest till she had retrieved all her babies, touching them with her nose to know that they were safe.

When fishermen scour the seas for tuna they inevitably catch innocent dolphins in their nets. Dolphin infants are too young and bewildered to escape from these traps. Their mothers will go to extraordinary lengths to stay near their children, singing to comfort them, even putting their own lives at risk in the process. Recently, a tourist videotaped a dolphin mother grieving for her dead baby, a phenomenon long reported by marine biologists but never before documented on film. When a young dolphin dies the entire pod surrounds and protects the mother while she grieves.

The bond between mother and child extends to dairy animals as well. Cows on dairy farms can often be seen calling and searching for their babies after they have been taken away from them.

In the United Kingdom, a cow named Blackie and her calf were separated when they were sold separately at an auction. The distraught mother broke out of her enclosure and was found seven miles away on another farm, contentedly suckling her calf.

Among elephants, familial bonds are one of the strongest in the animal kingdom. In the wild, female elephants stay with their mothers their entire lives, looking after each other and each other's young. Male elephants only leave their mother's protection when they are about 15 years old.

Elephant mothers play with their babies and teach them lessons about life and what they need to know to survive. Even the formidable alligators are gentle mothers who use their powerful jaws to delicately crack open the eggs of their babies struggling to hatch.

Mothers in the animal kingdom are not that different from our own mothers in the way they nurture and protect their young. This Mother's Day, PETA has asked that we honour animal mothers too by showing kindness and compassion to them.

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