Tiger Woods May Have Cheated, but do Tigers?

SAN DIEGO, April 8, 2010 — -- Sure, there's been a ton of tabloid coverage of the alleged infidelities of Tiger Woods and Jesse James, but only those two men know what they really did, and what their real motivations were. They damaged their marriages, reputations and careers.

Was it a much-debated sexual addiction? A series of bad choices? Or would they argue that it was, in part, nature?

That's not for us to decide, but one thing we can say: Tigers don't always cheat

In the animal kingdom, tigers often choose just one partner — though they hook up just a few days before consummating their union, mating as often as 150 times in a two-day period when the female is in heat.

We toured the Wild Animal Park at the famed San Diego Zoo to observe animal behavior first hand. We began with the monogamists.

Take the red-cheeked gibbons, apes that may swing from vines but not from mate to mate. They choose one lifelong partner and raise their young together.

The crowned crane is also among the animal kingdom's most faithful. It is revered in some Asian countries as a symbol of monogamy.

Dressed for Success

"For animals, all reproductive strategies are based on success, so for one particular species it might be monogamy; for another, it might be a polygamy situation," said Michael Mace, one of the park's curators.

This is where mammals come in. More than 90 percent of mammals tend to spread their charm with multiple mates over a lifetime The gorilla is among those leading the pack.

Dominant gorilla males will live and mate with 5-30 females. The male provides protection but to maintain his authority, he must also fend off competition.

Andrew Stallard, an animal care supervisor, said, "This one male gorilla, called a silverback, does all the breeding and protection of the territory during his tenure. Now, should another male come along, challenge him, and win, the existing dominant male is sent walking."

Birds Do it, Bees Do it, But What About Gorillas?

But wait! Before you throw the males under the Safari bus, know that polygamy is not gender-specific.

At the elephant enclosure, the curator points out the matriarch of the elephant herd. She rules. Senior female elephants oversee herds in almost every case and supervise the care and feeding of the babies. The female prefers to mate with multiple partners over the years, some of whom live on the fringe of the herd and not with the tight cluster of females and their offspring.

Seeing all these animal behaviors, it's natural to want to compare human behavior to that of animals.

"There is animal divorce," Mace concedes. "In the wild, if the pair is, for one reason or another, not successful reproductively, sometimes there will be divorces and they will leave to re-pair with other mates."

But short of that, zoologists suggest that human behavior like the kind we've read about in the tabloids lately can't necessarily be blamed on animal instincts.

Scientists say animals mate because they are genetically programmed to perpetuate their species. Creating offspring is the primary goal. And of the estimated 30 million species of animals on the planet today, very few ever have sex for fun.