Unlikely Friendships : 47 Remarkable Stories From the Animal Kingdom (12 page)

Misfortune for a handful of wild cats led to a happy mingling of species at a South African reserve.

It happened at the Pumba Private Game Reserve in Port Elizabeth, a place where lions stalk and cheetahs race, where zebras and giraffes form stoic silhouettes on the dusty plains, and where rhinos and elephants turn watering holes into muddy plunge pools.

First, a lion cub named Sheba was brought to Pumba for rehabilitation. Sheba's mother, while still heavily pregnant, had been mistakenly caught by a game relocation team. Two of her cubs died shortly after birth, and she abandoned the third—most likely as a result of the stress of the capture.

Staff at the Pumba Reserve took in the abandoned lion cub and did their best to fill the maternal void. They planned to raise her for eighteen months, then introduce her to a pride of lions on the nearly 7,000-hectare stretch of woodland and open plains.

Not too long after that, a pair of young caracal were brought to the reserve. Caracal are a smallish, quick-footed, lynxlike species that roams the open country of Africa and the Middle East. The caracal siblings had lost their mother to hunting dogs on a nearby farm after she had attacked the resident farmer's sheep. Normally, caracal kittens stick with their mothers for as much as a year, so without a stand-in parent the babies' future was grim. As they had with the lion cub, the staff at the Pumba Reserve did their best to mother the caracals. They named the brother–sister duo Jack and Jill. And they had a playmate for the kittens in mind—Sheba, the little, lonely lion cub.

Sheba, Jack, and Jill formed an instant bond. “They all live together in our farm house with our dog Frankie,” says reserve director Dale Howarth, whose home sits on the boundary of the wildland. “They play together like any domestic cats, but obviously they are a lot bigger and more boisterous—and do a lot of damage to our carpets and furniture. Climbing up curtains is no challenge at all.”

The three cats sleep together in a furry heap in the bedroom Dale shares with his wife, allowing for the regular feedings the youngsters require. At about twelve months, he says, the caracals will be given free range of the reserve, while the lioness will begin to separate from the “family” at about eighteen months, when she's ready to find a mate. “At that point, all the cats will be free to come and go as they feel comfortable; there's no pressure on the animals to stay or leave,” Dale says.

Until then, each day is a sweet medley of eating, sleeping on the veranda, tumbling, grappling, clawing, and startling their caretakers as they race with mad abandon through house and garden. Kittens will be kittens, after all. Until they grow into caracals and lions.

{G
EORGIA
, U.S.A., 2001}

Oh, my! It's the big three that spooked Dorothy and her Oz 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.”