Animal starts to nurture young and leaves afterwards (5)
I believe the answer is:
nyala
'animal' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'starts to nurture young and leaves afterwards' is the wordplay.
'starts to' says to take the initial letters.
The first letters of 'nurture young and leaves afterwards' is 'NYALA'.
(Other definitions for nyala that I've seen before include "one of a herd" , "South African native" , "South African antelope - Sudanese city" , "African animal" , "Antelope of southern Africa" .)