Fatherhood among animals

Most birds but only a few mammals bond together to raise their young. Among Snowy Owls, the mom who sits the eggs has a full time job, due to the frigid temperatures, and must rely on her mate, who hunts lemmings and brings them back to the nests. Dad continues to hunt as the owlets hatch and during their first weeks of life, and after that mom hunts as well as dad. Snowy owls are wonderful parents, and swallow their own hunger and allow their body weight to drop by as much as a third as they provide food for their ravenous youngsters. When sufficient prey is available, a snowy owl pair can raise a family of nine owlets in a single season under terribly inhospitable conditions and not lose a one of them.

Two parents working together to raise the young can provide a huge advance over a single parent going it alone. Is it not surprising that the arrangement has not caught on among more mammals? Among grazing animals, such as horses or deer, it is not clear how a male might contribute. Would he snatch a clump of grass in his teeth and bring it over to his missus and lay it down for her to eat it? Among predators such as bears or leopards, the male of the species could obviously help out with the provisions but instead he simply mates and goes his own way while the faithful mother stays with her youngsters and raises them.

Among coyotes and various foxes and wolves the male does bond, and hunts and provides for his missus and the pups. Among coyotes, we might note, fatherhood has limited privileges. While the father hunts and delivers the meals, the mother establishes proprietary rights to the den and does not allow the faithful father to enter.

Why is fatherhood so common among birds but so uncommon among mammals? The answer may be in the ease with which the mother of the species can manage it on her own. A mama bird must sit the nest and warm the eggs for the chicks to survive, while a mama mammal carries her unborn youngsters inside her belly and remains mobile during gestation. And once youngsters are born, survival for chicks requires hourly food collections, while a mama mammal has an onboard supply of nutritious milk. So while male birdies who fail to bond would have few or no surviving offspring, most bachelor mammals seem to pass along their genes just fine. A similar arrangement seems to have worked well enough for our hominid ancestors, up until the time that children required too much for a single mom to handle on her own.

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