Celebrating motherhood

Mom, Mother, Madre, Mamá — the word can conjure up all kinds of thoughts: love, home, warmth, security and more. Not everyone, though, is lucky enough to have Carol Brady, Claire Huxtable or June Cleaver as a mother. The media provides plenty of those examples.

Another type of mother is above human feelings of any type.

David Mizejewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation, said that motherhood is a life-changing series of events for wild animals, just as with humans.

“Just because they’re not human doesn’t make wildlife mothers any less dedicated,” Mizejewski said. “Wildlife mothers devote precious resources to finding a mate, digging dens, building nests, giving birth and protecting and feeding their babies.”

Ed Clark, director of the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, agrees.

“Motherhood manifests itself in a lot of different ways,” Clark said. “But we at the Wildlife Center are resistant to projecting human characteristics on animals.”
Still, some of the examples Mizejewski provides of animal moms give pause to think.

Going hungry

In the wild, some mothers start extreme fasts. Female bears give birth in their winter dens, where the helpless young will be safe and warm, even though that means mom doesn’t get to eat for weeks or even months prior to giving birth. Bears gorge themselves on rich foods such as nuts and berries (black bears), salmon (grizzlies) and blubbery seals (polar bears) in order to pack on weight in preparation for the fast.

Pacific gray whales migrate thousands of miles from cold, plankton-rich Arctic waters to relatively nutrient-poor tropical lagoons off the coast of Mexico where they give birth. This protects their calves from killer whales, which stick to the colder waters. It also gives their newborns time to feed on their incredibly fatty milk and build a layer of insulating blubber before they head to the Arctic. Like bears, the mother whales go hungry for months while still needing to produce high calorie milk for their babies. During this time they may lose as much as 8 tons of weight.

Delicate touch

Alligators have powerful jaws that clamp down on prey including fish, snakes and small mammals. The jaws of an adult alligator can exert over 2,000 pounds of pressure. They are strong enough to crush right through turtle shells and tear giant chunks of flesh from prey too large to swallow in one gulp. Yet alligator moms use those same jaws to delicately tear open their nest of mud and decaying vegetation to release their newly hatched young. Then they individually pick up their tiny hatchlings, which only measure a few inches long, and transport them to the safety of the water.

No strollers needed

Surinam toads have a unique way of moving their young around. Rather than simply laying a clutch of eggs and leaving them to their fate, female Surinam toads carry their eggs on their back. The sticky eggs settle into their mom’s spongy, honeycombed skin where they hatch, grow and complete metamorphosis before striking out on their own, getting the protective benefit of their mom’s speed and size the whole time.

It takes a village

Lucky human moms have help from their extended families, friends and, of course, dads. Many wild species live in social groups and enjoy the same benefit. Elephant herds are matriarchal and made up of the dominant female, her sisters and all of the young. Baby elephants are coddled and protected by the entire herd and often play under the watchful eye of a babysitter while the rest of the adults are foraging. Musk ox calves also get the protection of the herd. If wolves attack, the adults form a protective ring around the young, facing the wolves with their thick skulls and sharp horns. Wolves themselves are social animals, and while only the dominant female gives birth, the rest of the pack actively takes part in the care, protection and feeding of cubs.

Quantity not quality

Humans devote an amazing amount of time to the care and protection of their babies, and so do many wild animal moms. But in nature some species have evolved a different, but equally effective, tactic. Instead of having just a few babies, many species have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of offspring. It’s just not possible for a mother to take care of that many young. Without that care, most of those offspring fall prey to predators or fail to find food or habitat and die. But given the sheer number of young, some are bound to survive to adulthood to reproduce and ensure the survival of the species. Wildlife species as diverse as fish, frogs, sea turtles and insects employ this motherhood strategy.

Clark offers other examples of mothering extremes.

“A local example is the mother killdeer, a type of bird,” Clark said. “When danger approaches, she’ll pretend to be injured to lure the predator away and to chase her. She can put on quite a display with all that flopping around she does.”

Birds of prey, Clark says, will pluck their own breast feathers to line their nests because it creates a softer insulation and provides for more direct heating of the eggs.

“She can feel it next to her skin,” Clark said.

Celebrating what mothers do for their young is strictly a human response that is thought to have begun in ancient Greece with festivals to the gods. The notion of Mother’s Day began in 1870 with Julia Ward Howe, though it wasn’t until 1914 with Anna Jarvis, who had no children of her own, that it became a holiday Americans celebrate today.

Though Mizejewski and Clark both agree that there are extreme actions taken on the part of animal mothers, Clark said that few animals even come close to repaying mom’s hard work as humans do.

“The only thing I can think of that will happen, in wolves, is that older siblings will help the mother [the alpha female who is the only one who will breed in their societal group] with the next batch of offspring. Sort of like today’s teenagers who help out with babysitting their younger siblings.

“It happens in coyotes and wolves, in integrated family units over many generations.”

In nature, Clark said there are two types of mothers: the nurturing kind, with maternal instincts that are extremely protective of their young, and the kind of mother that through evolutionary design abandons their young.

“Turtles wouldn’t be very good at nurturing,” Clark said.

But it isn’t out of love or concern that these animals tend to younger or even older family members, as in the case of some primates. It is purely an evolutionary action, one that arose out of necessity, Clark said.

“Tending other family members is an expensive behavior as far as sharing food for daily living,” he said. “Some species developed family units where everyone working together survives at a higher rate than going it alone.

“If you’re looking for a connection with humans, I don’t think you’re going to find one. There is not a lot of altruism in nature.”