If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it. It defies all laws of nature. The Animal Planet special, Heart of a Lioness, aired last night. Apparently a very young lioness's family was poisoned by farmers in Kenya because they were killing the farmers' cattle. Well, this lioness was so young and mentally underdeveloped because of being deprived of interaction with the pride, that some of its killer instincts were suppressed. The oryx was also very young when abandoned or orphaned and its instinct to run didn't imprint. They both nearly starve to death because they are inseperable and the lion won't hunt while looking after the oryx. It's the damndest thing you've ever seen! I didn't see the part of how it came to adopt the little oryx, but the footage of them lying together in the shade snuggling was almost comical. When watching this, you're always on the edge of your seat wondering when this lioness is going to figure it out and do the deed. Well, it has a dramatic ending that I'm not going to reveal and it's not what you think either. It also shows the use of a PD-150 or 170 for all of you Sonyheads. I know that I would have loved to have shot this but the suspense would have been unbearable and I'm not lion! I'm terrible aren't I. Anyway, if you can catch this, it is very interesting and said to be the only occurance of it's kind ever documented on tape. It doesn't hurt that the host is a real cutie pie too!

Heart of a Lioness
http://search.discovery.com/search?proxystylesheet=aplMain&site=aplContent%7CaplNews&client=aplMain&output=xml_no_dtd&filter=0&getfields=*&q=lioness

I first saw this on the new Wild Kingdom... on a side note, the new hostess is much easier to watch than ol' Marlin Perkins ;) Every now and then, the oryx would start to run, and the lioness' instincts almost surfaced. It was an odd story, but it kept me glued to the set!

Every now and then, the oryx would start to run, and the lioness' instincts almost surfaced.
Well, the oryx never really tried to run for its life. It mostly walked because it just didn't have enough energy. Neither had eaten for two weeks! They did get a drink every now and then. The oryx constantly tried to get milk from other female oryxes in the area for energy rich protein and the lioness would just follow along at her own pace and not even try to hunt the grown oryxes. But they weren't taking any chances that's for sure. The park rangers finally couldn't take it anymore a left some meat for the lioness and she wouldn't eat it.

The editors even cut a segment with shots of other oryxes and deer staring at the odd couple along with narration that implied they were thinking, what the hell? At one point the lioness would nibble at the oryx's tail which could have been play and then she would put her paw on the little oryx as they slipped in some suspenseful music as if she was going to......., perish the thought! Next she would just lick the oryx a couple of times and then plop back down to rest.

They also showed two other teen age lions/lionesses hunting another deerlike animal. Apparently, they too were on their own and once they got the deer stuck in a mud puddle, they didn't know what to do with it. So they pawed at it and just licked it. But then their killer instict came out and they killed it as normal.