Sounds like she is exactly a stepparent type. Wanting to get rid of your partner’s child is common in monogamous animals. That said, it could be very real and you are absolutely right. She should be getting rid of herself.
I mean we are. Yesterday saw a video of a male macaque waterboarding a juvenile much much smaller than him. Usually males do this type of stuff to kill the child so that the mother is able to reproduce again sooner. And thus increase his chances of reproduction. Except this one, was just doing it out of either play, or to assert dominance. Possibly both. Primates are creatively cruel too.
But I have seen a female wolf raise a fox IRL (I have a cottage in a small village in the mountains). They are prey to each other (not really, but if there is nothing else to eat, wolves will hunt and kill a fox as well), but I saw the mother with the fox and the rest of her siblings, she made no distinction raising her biological children and the fox. I gave them food sometimes and I saw her raise them in real time. I’m still amazed by that gesture… and we think of them as animals while us that kill for no reason at all are “civilized”… at least they kill for food…
Yeah it’s amazing when resources are bountiful, and animals share them. But foxes and wolves are not the sadistic primates. So I am not surprised. It is so wholesome.
Sounds like she is exactly a stepparent type. Wanting to get rid of your partner’s child is common in monogamous animals. That said, it could be very real and you are absolutely right. She should be getting rid of herself.
Just goes to show you, we’re not that far from animals.
I mean we are. Yesterday saw a video of a male macaque waterboarding a juvenile much much smaller than him. Usually males do this type of stuff to kill the child so that the mother is able to reproduce again sooner. And thus increase his chances of reproduction. Except this one, was just doing it out of either play, or to assert dominance. Possibly both. Primates are creatively cruel too.
Yeah, that is true for primates.
But I have seen a female wolf raise a fox IRL (I have a cottage in a small village in the mountains). They are prey to each other (not really, but if there is nothing else to eat, wolves will hunt and kill a fox as well), but I saw the mother with the fox and the rest of her siblings, she made no distinction raising her biological children and the fox. I gave them food sometimes and I saw her raise them in real time. I’m still amazed by that gesture… and we think of them as animals while us that kill for no reason at all are “civilized”… at least they kill for food…
Yeah it’s amazing when resources are bountiful, and animals share them. But foxes and wolves are not the sadistic primates. So I am not surprised. It is so wholesome.