There once was a female Amur tiger named Nikita, who might have been pregnant at the National Zoo. But wait – she’d never had a wild night with the father-to-be. Her chosen partner, Metis, the 375-pound Romeo, seemed perfect on paper. Alas, his performance in the bedroom failed to impress our furry bachelorette. Their 11 attempts at love while Nikita was in heat resulted in only occasional friendly snuggles, leaving her seeking comfort in her catnap.

Meanwhile, her dating history wasn’t any better. In 2019, she had been paired with Pavel, a tiger who almost killed her in his pursuit of an unwelcome rendezvous. This forced Nikita to take matters into… well, the zookeepers’ hands. Under anesthesia, she was artificially inseminated, and now we impatiently wait for cubs, hoping they don’t learn about Mommy’s awkward dating experiences.

It might be tempting to get ethical about this wild love story, but why couldn’t Nikita just mate when she wanted, and with her preferred partner? While zoos surely want more tigers to show off, the deeper reason for breeding cubs is ensuring genetic diversity for future furry generations. By preserving Nikita’s unique genetics, one day her great-grandcubs could be released into the wilds of Siberia or northeast China.

In the age of mass extinction, technology races to rescue threatened populations. Soon, we’ll see cryobanks brimming with samples from endangered species, artificial wombs for baby rhinos and elephants, and even genetically edited coral that can survive climate change. Yet we can’t help but feel a pang of pity for these animals, whose love lives are more robotic than rom-com. It seems future generations might witness a world with less animal passion and more tech intervention.

Welcome to a new age of conservation, where cryobanks and biotech replace the birds and the bees! While these solutions might save some species, we don’t want to rely solely on these Frankenstein-esque formulas. Protecting ecosystems and changing human behaviors are just as important to give animals like Nikita the wild life they deserve.

In a twist of irony, it turns out that humans aren’t hopping between the sheets that much either. Maybe we’ve been caged up by technology too long, with our Zoom chats and Slack updates. Or perhaps, just like Nikita, we need some space to be as wild as we want while we save the world from impending doom.