Unlikely Friendships : 47 Remarkable Stories From the Animal Kingdom by Jennifer S. Holland Read Free Book Online

companions, together again. But at Noah’s Ark Animal Rehabilitation Center in Locust Grove, Georgia, lion, tiger, and bear aren’t frightening; they’re brothers.
    They arrived together at the rehab center back in 2001, three cubs that had been confiscated by the Department of Natural Resources during a drug bust. They were Leo (the lion), Shere Khan (the tiger), and Baloo (the bear), and clearly the animals, not more than three months old apiece at the time, had become inseparable during their ordeal.
    So together they remained. Their habitat at the center was made roomy enough for three, and they got a sturdy new “clubhouse,”a wooden structure built as a place to bunk and, sometimes, to hide from the streams of awestruck visitors peering at the center’s oddest mates. In the wild, these animals would have to cross oceans to meet face to face: lions come from Africa, tigers from Asia, and American black bears are, obviously, American. Yet their different beginnings haven’t kept them from being contented roommates.
    Jama Hedgecoth, one of the founders of Noah’s Ark, says the animals play daily, sometimes roughly, yet tempers never flare. Everyone just gets along. Rubbing against each other, butting heads, and sleeping and eating together, “they truly live in harmony,” she says. In the morning they awaken full of pep, ready to wrestle each other and attack their toys (tires, logs, and other relatively indestructible objects). As afternoon creeps in, the three become a pile of lazy bones, sprawled out in the yard or on the “porch” of their house as visitors wander by.
    Unlike most housecats, tigers like water. So do bears. That means Shere Khan and Baloo can share another activity: getting wet. They’ve had a series of tubs to splash in over the years, and when their habitat is next renovated, they’ll have access to a nearby creek.
    Though it was originally a series of unfortunate circumstances that brought them together in Georgia, U.S.A., the lion, tiger, and bear born continents apart have settled in as a family, unaware of their disparate genetics and far-flung origins. “This is their forever home now,” says Jama, “and we hope they’ll have a long and healthy life together.”

{K ENYA , 2002}

The
Lioness
and the
Baby Oryx

    EAST AFRICAN ORYX

KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Artiodactyla
FAMILY: Bovidae
GENUS:
Oryx
SPECIES:
Oryx beisa
    In the Samburu National Reserve of Kenya, the East African bush unfolds in thick scrubland and grassy hills, with muddy rivers curling like ribbons through the plains. It is a land of hippos and elephants, of zebra and giraffe, where big cats and squawking monkeys drink from the same ephemeral watering holes and where nomadic herders bring cattle and goats to gnaw grasses from the dry earth. Here Nature veered from her customary course, and a legendary animal tale was born.
    It was almost biblical: a lion and a baby antelope lying down together in peace. Local people said it was a message from God. They named the lion Kamunyak, meaning “blessed one.” They came to the bush to bear witness to the strange pairing, andhoped the wonderment would last.
    Saba Douglas-Hamilton, a social anthropologist and conservationist for Save the Elephants, followed the animals for more than two weeks as their relationship grew. She watched as a normally fierce predator protected its prey. And she witnessed how it all ended.
    The antelope was an oryx just finding its legs. The cat was a young lioness still pink-nosed with youth—too young to have given birth and lost cubs, but old enough to know her prey and to hunt and kill it. For some reason, this young lion, having become separated from her pride, adopted the oryx “as if it were her cub,” says Saba. The two walked the land side by side and slept together, one an extension of the other.
    For a time, the lioness seemed