From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Little Tyke the Veggy Lion
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 20:58:29 GMT


    I've had some positive e-mail about the story of Little Tyke,
the vegetarian lion.  While there have been other stories of
"vegetarian" lions, this is one of the better documented cases.
I've typed out below James Peden's brief account (from his book,
"Vegetarian Cats & Dogs, 1992), which is largely based upon the
book written by the human caretaker of Little Tyke:

        Westbeau, G.  LITTLE TYKE.  Bosie: Pacific Pr., 1956


    LION LIGHTS

    At four years old the mature African lioness weighted 352
    lbs.  Her body stretched 10 feet 4 inches long and could run
    40 miles per hour.  Her skull, highly adapted to killing and
    eating prey, possessed short, powerful jaws.  Normally,
    African lions eat gnus, zebras, gazelles, impalas, and
    giraffes.  This particular big cat, in her prime and perfect
    health, chose a more gentle way of life, vegetarian!
    
    
    A VIOLENT BIRTH
    
    Georges and Margaret Westbeau, standing outside the thick
    steel bars of the cage, watched nervously.  Inside, a
    vicious, raging beast baring razor claws and glistening
    fangs, roared.  Flinging herself at the couple, how watched
    from barely three feet away, her suffering amber eyes defied
    their presence.
    
    Always, in the past, this lioness destroyed her offspring as
    soon as they were born.  Four times in the last seven years,
    her powerful jaws had crushed her newborn cubs, furiously
    throwing them against her cage's bars where they tumbled,
    lifeless.
    
    Denying the normal instincts of motherhood, what possessed
    this lioness?  Her life mocked it's former freedom.  She
    lived a caged animal, taken from the wild and tortured by
    those who captured her.  Did she fell that by destroying her
    cubs they would be spared the humiliation that she endured?
    
    Suddenly, the newborn cub cam flying towards the people
    anxiously watching.  Georges quickly grabbed the cub through
    the bars before it could be killed.  Its right front leg
    dangled helplessly from its mother's brutal jaws.  In the
    face of such fury the only thing the human could say was,
    "you poor little tyke".
    
    The Westbeaus took the 3 lb "Little Tyke" to their Hidden
    Valley Ranch near Seattle and there it joined the menagerie
    of other animals including horses, cattle, and chickens.
    Curious peacocks lined the housetop, kittens peered through a
    picket fence, and two terriers danced with joy for the new
    addition to the household.
    
    Drinking bottles of warm milk, Little Tyke began the long
    road to recovery.
    
    
    MYSTERIOUS REACTION
    
    With the advice of experts the Westbeaus began weaning Little
    Tyke onto sold food at three months.  Leaving only a favorite
    doll, they removed most of her rubber toys, replacing them
    with bones from a freshly slaughtered beef.  They carried the
    small cub to the bones.  Unexpectedly, she violently threw
    up!
    
    Experts told them in no uncertain terms that lions couldn't
    live without meat.  In the wild, lions ate only flesh --
    eleven lbs. a day for an adult female.  Alarmed at Little
    Tyke's strange behavior, they wondered at how they could
    introduce meat into her diet?  In the meantime, they
    continued feeding Little Tyke baby cereal mixed with milk.  A
    well meaning friend suggested mixing beef blood with milk, in
    increasing proportions.  Given milk containing ten drops of
    blood, Little Tyke would have nothing to do with it.  they
    mixed in five drops of blood, and hid that bottle.  As she
    sucked on the plain milk they quickly switched bottles.
    Again she refused it.  In desperation they added ONE drop of
    blood to a full bottle of milk, but Little Tyke refused this
    bottle as well, and they could only stare in amazement.
    
    Another friend suggested putting milk in one hand, and milk
    mixed with hamburger in the palm of the other hand.  Little
    Tyke readily licked the milk from one hand, but when Georges
    changed hands, she immediately turned away.  Sensing her
    distress, Georges wiped his hands on a nearby towel and
    picked her up.  Hissing in fear and cringing away, she looked
    sick from the danger-smell of meat on his hand.  She only
    settled down when given a fresh bottle of milk held in washed
    hands.
    
    
    THE $1,000 REWARD
    
    At 9 months old and weighting 65 lbs, Little Tyke had the
    splints and bandages on her leg taken off for the last time.
    She slowly learned to depend on the healed leg, and mingled
    with other animals on the ranch.
    
    Since the ranch didn't earn enough income to make ends meet,
    the Westbeaus ran a small cold storage plant in town.  Little
    Tyke came with them when they went to work and word got
    around about this vegetarian lioness.  When she was 4 years
    old, the Westbeaus advertised a 1,000 dollar reward for
    anyone one could devise a method tricking Little Tyke into
    eating meat.  Numerous plans met with failure since Little
    Tyke refused to have anything to do with flesh.
    
    . . .
    
    LITTLE TYKE'S MEALS
    
    A typical meal consisted of various grains, chosen for their
    protein, calcium, fats, and roughage.   Margaret always
    cooked a few days' supply ahead of time.  At feeding time, a
    double handful of the cooked grains along with 1/2 gallon of
    milk with 2 eggs, supplied Little Tyke a delicious meal.  She
    had one condition before eating.  Her favorite rubber doll
    had to be right next to her!
    
    For teeth and gums, the Westbeaus supplied rubber boots since
    she refused bones.  they attracted her to the boots by
    sprinkling them with perfume.  One boot lasted almost a
    month.  Little Tyke had many close animal friends.  Her
    favorites were Pinky (a kitten), Imp (another kitten), Becky
    (a lamb) and Baby (a fawn).  Her favorite and closest friend,
    however, was Becky, who preferred Little Tyke's company to
    any of the other animals.
    
    
    NATIONAL PUBLICITY
    
    "You Asked For It", the popular television show hosted by Art
    Baker, once featured Little Tyke.  The producers wanted a
    scene with chickens, which didn't bother Georges since Little
    Tyke roamed easily among chickens at Hidden Valley Ranch.
    When the film crew brought the chickens in, they turned out
    to be four little day-old chicks!
    
    
    SLURP OF THE TONGUE
    
    Little Tyke's only previous experience with new chicks had
    been with a hen and her chicks who had wondered onto the
    lawns around their home on the ranch.  Georges thought
    nothing of it until he saw Little Tyke acting peculiarly,
    slinking into the house, and looking guilty with lips tightly
    closed over obviously open jaws.  He called, "Tyke!  What
    have you got?"  Instantly her mouth opened and a little chick
    popped out, unharmed.  Flapping its little down-covered
    wings, it almost flew back to its upset mother.  Apparently
    Little Tyke had affectionately licked the tiny chick, as she
    was prone to do when, with one huge slurp of the tongue, the
    little chick had popped into her mouth, and she hadn't known
    how to fondle it further!
    
    With the amazed camera crew filming, Little Tyke strode over
    to the chicks, hesitated long enough to lick the chicks
    CAREFULLY and GENTLY with the very TIP of her tongue, and
    moved away with a a yawn.  A moment later she came back to
    lie down among the chicks.  They immediately made their way
    into the long silky hair at the base of her great neck where
    they peered out form the shelter of their great protector.
    
    Another scene saw a new kitten, after an introduction, walk
    over to Little Tyke's huge foreleg and sit down.  Little Tyke
    crooked one paw around the tiny creature and cuddled it
    closer.
    
    In front of cameras, Art Baker picked up a BIBLE and read:
    "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion
    shall eat straw like the bullock."
    
    Mail poured into the producers, making this episode one of
    the most popular in the show's history.
    
    
    LITTLE TYKE'S DEATH
    
    Unfortunately, while spending 3 weeks in Hollywood for the
    show, Little Tyke contracted virus pneumonia, a disease that
    took her life f few weeks later.  The sudden change in
    climate may have been a contributing factor.  She succumbed
    quietly in her sleep, retiring early after watching
    television.
    
    
    INSPIRING TO THIS DAY
    
    Her life is over, but her teachings live on.  Of the many
    lessons she taught, not the least is that love removes fear
    and savagery.  Little Tyke reflected the love and care shown
    to her after the first few moments of her precarious birth.
    
    Thousands saw photographs of her lying with her lamb friend,
    Becky, inspiring many to see the world a fresh way: two such
    diverse natures enjoying each other's love!  One eminent
    attorney kept a huge enlargement of this photograph in his
    office, and pointed to it as he counseled couples on the
    verge of divorce.
    
    
    SCIENTIFIC DILEMMA
    
    Science is at loss when it comes to Little Tyke.  felines are
    the strictest of carnivores.  Without flesh she should have
    developed blindness, dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a
    degenerative disease that turns heart muscles flabby,
    limiting their ability to pump blood.  This is because her
    diet didn't contain an adequate source of taurine.
    
    Not known to be essential in the 1950's, research at UC Davis
    in 1976 proved that taurine is an essential nutrient for
    felines, the lack of which would cause degeneration of the
    retina.  later research implicated inadequate taurine levels
    in dilated cardiomyopathy as well.  For cats with DCM, if the
    disease has not progressed too far, administering taurine
    causes an almost miraculous recovery.  Formerly, cats only
    lived a few days to weeks after diagnosis.
    
    Taurine is non-existent in natural non-animal sources.  It is
    present in minute amounts in milk and eggs.  Little Tyke
    COULD have gotten her taurine requirement from milk, IF she
    drank 500 gallons per day, or from eggs IF she ate more than
    4,000 per day.  How DID Little Tyke get taurine?


So, we end with a mystery.  Now, one explanation would be that
the story is an clever hoax.  Well, maybe so, but what is not
fake is the witnessed fact that Little Tyke did not attack small
animals on her farm (Becky the lamb, Pinky the kitten, etc.).  Of
course, maybe this is not too unusual.  More interesting is that
Little Tyke did reject raw meat given to her from outsiders.
Could this be training?  Remember folks, the reason I mentioned
this story which others have published, is simply to provide a
possible exception to Jill's correct observation that lions don't
normally prefer plant foods over flesh foods (although wild lions 
and tigers do often go straight for their victim's stomach after
making a kill, devouring the soup of digesting vegetation as a
starter, and several wild cat species seek to supplement their
diet with some fruit or vegetable tidbits)

Another explanation besides fraud is that maybe indeed Little
Tyke was an exceptional lion.  After all, there are individual
differences and most of the research on taurine needs for felines
is based upon the domestic cat, not upon lions.  Maybe Little
Tyke also obtained some taurine, and maybe just enough, during
her 1 hour grazing in the field where insect matter would have
been ingested.  In any case, it is true that her apparent lack of
the expected dietary need for taurine simply goes unexplained,
but so do many things which later turn out to be explicable as
our scientific knowledge of things grows.

                                     ted



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