MANGALDAI, April 30 - Not only human beings, every creature in this world has a strong longing for maternal care and protection, especially in the earliest part of their lives. Equally, all living female animals enjoy motherhood by offering the deepest form of love and care to their babies, and that is the reason why the parameter of a mother�s love and care can never be compared to any other form of love and care.
We all know that love and care for a mother animal towards her baby is quite normal. But if the baby is from a different mother and that too of a separate animal species, then this type of phenomenon can never be regarded as normal, it�s rare.
A thickly-populated residential area in Mangaldai town these days is witnessing one such rare example of motherhood and maternal care where a full grown female monkey has been taking care of a newly-born baby squirrel. The incident has already created a strong curiosity among the people, especially among nature lovers and media persons, who have thronged the residential campus of Sekhar Mazumdar, a young entrepreneur and a nature lover at Santipur, ward No. 3, to witness the two wild animals of different species bonded strongly to each other.
Talking to this correspondent, Mazumdar said that the mother monkey does not leave the baby squirrel alone even for a second. When she is hungry, she makes some sounds and when any fruit or vegetable is provided, she comes down from the nearby tree or boundary wall, holding her �baby� in one hand and then picks the food item with the other hand and goes back to her safe location. �We were extremely delighted when we saw the mother monkey breast feeding the baby squirrel,� exclaimed Mazumdar, adding, some months ago, this monkey was also found offering care and love to a lonely puppy in the locality.
Meanwhile, on being contacted in connection with the behaviour of the monkey, prominent zoologist and principal of Kharupetia College, Dr Budhin Chandra Hazarika termed it as an incident of very rare character on the part of the primate. A monkey�s behaviour towards other animal species is normally not friendly, except in the case of human beings in some cases.
This rare behaviour of the monkey shows that she wanted to shower her maternal instincts on someone else as she might have lost her own baby and therefore was deprived of enjoying that magical bond with the baby, Dr Hazarika pointed out.
At a time when in our modern civil society, newborn babies are found in dustbins, thrown away by some cruel mothers or parents, this incident in the animal world has really sent a message of awakening to our materialistic society.
