Unlikely Friendships
Page 6
{FLORIDA, U.S.A., 2010}
The Mouflon and the Eland
ELAND
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Artiodactyla
FAMILY: bovidae
GENUS: Taurotragus
SPECIES:Taurotragus oryx
MOUFLON
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Artiodactyla
FAMILY: bovidae
GENUS: Ovis
SPECIES: Ovisaries
Unless you’re up your ungulates, which most of us aren’t, you might not know exactly what a mouflon is. It sounds like a hairdo. And an eland? Anyone?
Turns out a mouflon is the smallest of the wild horned sheep. It hides away in steep mountainous woodlands in places like Iraq and Iran. The mammal was introduced to various Mediterranean islands and to continental Europe long ago, and more recently to ranches in the United States for hunting.
Then there’s the eland, an antelope that hoofs across Africa’s open plains. The plant-eater hangs out with sometimes hundreds of its buddies, though it doesn’t seem to establish close ties in the wild and often leaves one herd for another.
But when a male mouflon met a female eland more than fifteen years ago at the Lion Country Safari Park in Palm Beach County, Florida, a close tie was inevitable. It was the beginning of an ongoing boy-meets-girl love story, says the park’s wildlife director Terry Wolf, “that is, if you believe animals can love and not just lust!”
The mouflon is an old male that was a hoofed Casanova in his younger days, with many mates of his own kind. But living among the eland, what is a lonely male sheep to do?
“He follows this one female eland passionately!” Terry says. “When she stops to graze, he will gently paw at her rear leg with his front foot, as if trying to coax her to come down to his level. After all, he is quite a bit shorter than she.” Then, when she lies down, the sheep acts the gentleman, lying quietly next to her.
Only the one eland has grabbed the sheep’s attention; he never bothers with the other females. “People think that the affair is cute,” Terry says, “but obviously it will go nowhere.” And with the mouflon already beyond his expected lifespan of twenty years, he no longer keeps up with his girlfriend as he once did, making his advances even less effective.
The eland, for her part, can be aloof—standing around chewing her cud, back turned to her suitor—but she seems content enough to be admired. “I think the mouflon is just happy she tolerates him,” Terry says. “But most important to us, she keeps him mobile, which is why he’s still around.”
{OHIO, U.S.A., 2009}
The Nearsighted Deer and the Poodle
POODLE
one of the most popular
breeds in the U.S., the
poodle is considered to be
an exceptionally
intelligent, easy-to-train
dog. Originally bred as a
water dog, the poodle is
known for its dense,
curly coat.
WHITE-TAILED DEER
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Artiodactyla
FAMILY: cervidae
GENUS: Odocoileus
SPECIES: Odocoileus
virginianus
Meet Dille, the coffee-drinking, bed-hogging, dog-loving “house deer” that has become an oversize member of veterinarian Melanie Butera’s menagerie in suburban Ohio.
When the farm-bred white-tailed deer came to the Elm Ridge Animal Hospital in Canal Fulton, Ohio, she was a very sick little animal, unable to eat or stand up on her bony legs. She was also virtually blind from a birth defect. Melanie ultimately decided to care for the deer at home, a household already heavily populated with a husband, two children, poodle Lady, cats Spaz and Neffie, and bird Screamie, not to mention a barnyard’s worth of animals outside.
With the exception of Screamie, who got a poor introduction to Dillie when the deer grabbed her by the tail feathers and tossed her, everyone in the house has grown to love Dillie. The cats approve of her warmth when they curl up next to her, and are happy to let the deer groom them from head to tail. But Lady is Dillie’s best friend. Says Melanie, “Lady was a great comfort to Dillie those first weeks, letting the scared little deer lie next to her on the couch or bed as she licked her down. Now, Dillie licks the poodle on the back or head, and sometimes nibbles her ears.” At the nipping, “Lady might snarl a little and play-bite her,” but the response does no harm. As a game, Lady likes to steal stuffed animals from Dillie and proudly carry them around, finally leaving them in the deer’s path so she’ll stumble across them later.
There’s also a bit of dog–deer mischief to report. Despite Dillie’s impaired vision, at Lady’s bidding she’ll grab bags of snacks from high shelves for the two to gobble down. Lady will try to steal food from Dillie, who boasts a surprisingly sophisticated palate that includes an appreciation for spaghetti, ice cream, coffee with a lot of milk, and, as a special treat, roses (which she crunches through like candy). And of course, as deer are wont to do, she happily destroys every plant in the Buteras’ yard as Lady lazes about nearby.
For a time both Dillie and Lady tried to share their owner’s bed at night. “I am a night owl,” says Melanie, “and would come to bed after everyone else was already positioned, and sometimes couldn’t even find a spot.” She also suffered the deer’s hooves digging into her back. Luckily, the animals resolved the issue on their own. Feeling the squeeze, Lady found a spot on an extra bed in the room, and Dillie took over a guest room elsewhere in the house. Now, Lady often joins the deer in “her” room for a nap, even when all beds are open.
Interestingly, Dillie is afraid of other dogs, even tiny puppies. “She’ll fluff up her tail and stomp her feet” if any canine but Lady gets too close, Melanie says. But that’s never been the case with Lady. “Dillie grew up with Lady and sees her as family.”
{FLORIDA, U.S.A., 2008}
The Orangutan and the Kitten
ORANGUTAN
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Primates
FAMILY: Hominidae
GENUS: Pongo
SPECIES: Pongo borneo
Koko got all the press, but the famous gorilla isn’t the only big ape to find solace in a cat. Consider Tonda, an orangutan who lived at ZooWorld in Panama City, Florida, for eleven years. She was never known for her sweet nature; beyond the occasional hand-holding or furtive smooch, even she and her mate weren’t terribly affectionate. But when the male died, Tonda began to realize her loss and entered a slow decline in appetite and enthusiasm for life. The ZooWorld staff gave her plenty of activities to enrich her days, from playing with toys to painting canvasses, but her interest waned and she became sullen. With no new mate available for the old girl, keepers decided to find her a friend of another kind.
A ginger feline that became known as T. K., or Tonda’s Kitty, got a slow, safe introduction to the primate’s world. “At first, we let them see each other but without contact, to watch how they’d react,” recalls the zoo’s director of education, Stephanie Willard. Then, contact was allowed for short stints to keep Tonda from getting too excited. With time, “she’d get angrier and angrier when we’d take him away,” Willard says. “That was her kitty!” So eventually, “we went for the gusto and put them together for real. And once their relationship had time to build, they were inseparable.”
T. K. became Tonda’s everything. When they weren’t in physical contact, she always had an eye on him. She’d tuck him under a blanket at naptime and shake a cornhusk for him to chase at playtime. And she’d scoop him up and carry him off to bed at night. T. K., meanwhile, “loved to love the primate” by rubbing against Tonda’s legs, licking and chewing her hands and feet, and reveling in he
r endless attentiveness.
“You have to remember, this was not a docile orangutan that was easily handled,” Willard says. Orangutans can be extremely dangerous, and Tonda had a lot of wildness in her. But her rough nature toward people and others didn’t keep her from finding a friend in T. K. “Their kinship was 100 percent real, worked out on their own terms. Animals don’t get enough credit for all they’re capable of emotionally,” Willard says. Most important, “this bond really meant something. It did something for Tonda both mentally and physically. It saved her life.”
{INDONESIA, 2007}
The Orangutan Babies and the Tiger Cubs
SUMATRAN TIGER
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Carnivora
FAMILY: Felidae
GENUS: Panthera
SPECIES: Panthera
tigris sumatrae
A matchup of captive-born babies was the talk of the Taman Safari Zoo in Cisarua, Indonesia. One-month-old Sumatran tiger twins and a pair of little orangutans just a few months older shared a room in the zoo’s nursery. The parents of both primates and cats had proven unfit or uninterested in their young, so zoo staff decided to mother the whole bunch as one litter.
The orangutans, Nia and Irma, and the tigers, Dema and Manis, formed something like a nursery school romper room when they were brought together during the day. “As is common with baby animals, they’d run and play together,” says animal curator Sharamy Prastiti. “Sometimes an orangutan would pounce on the belly of a tiger. Other times a cub would bite an orangutan’s ear. They loved to tease each other, like kids do.” Naptime turned boisterous individuals into a furry pile of snoring babies. Cuddling, nuzzling—orangutans and kittens were content to be physically close as much as possible.
The zoo staff began giving the animals more time apart in their own exhibits as they grew, and planned to separate them completely when the cubs were five months old. “At that point, the tigers are much bigger than the orangutans, and can be very active and sometimes naughty and rough,” says Sharamy.
When the youngsters were first parted, “they didn’t want to be independent—they looked as if they were all missing something. They’d make unusual sounds, as if crying without tears,” Sharamy says. But after a week or so, “they became adjusted to being on their own and the new situation.” The former pals now have no contact at all, a separation that’s appropriate and necessary to keep them safe. Though the orangutans are fruit-eaters, the tigers’ natural instinct, of course, is to hunt and eat meat. Nursery school is over.
The shared childhood appears to have benefited all concerned, but these animals also share something that can’t be celebrated: In the wild, both species are critically endangered. Sumatran tigers, a subspecies living naturally only on a single Indonesian island, may be down to about 500 animals. And orangutan populations are also declining. Both big cats and big apes compete with humans for habitat, a conservation problem without a simple solution.
{ENGLAND, 2009}
The Owl and the Spaniel
GREAT HORNED OWL
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Aves
ORDER: Strigiformes
FAMILY: Strigidae
GENUS: Bubo
SPECIES: B. virginianus
SPANIEL
Gentle, friendly—the
perfect FAMILY pet—
the English springer
spaniel was originally
a hunting dog, known
for its ability to flush,
or “spring” game.
At a bird-of-prey conservation center in Liskeard, Cornwall, a spaniel named Sophi has a taste for owls. Fortunately, she licks, not bites. And the meeting of mouths is mutual.
English spaniels are natural hunters, and flushing out and retrieving birds is their specialty. But in this case, Sophi the dog seems to have replaced those hunting instincts with something a bit more genial.
Normally Sharon Bindon, the conservationist who runs the center, doesn’t bring birds into her house. In fact, Sophi hadn’t gotten to meet one close up until the day Bramble arrived. But the owlet showed up at just two weeks of age, still featherless and too young to be placed in the aviary. So Sharon made an exception and carried the naked little creature inside.
“On that very first day, Sophi, then three, jumped up on the sofa to investigate the new arrival on my lap,” says Sharon. “As her way of affection, she started licking Bramble’s beak. From that day on, it became a daily ritual.”
Bramble was given a cozy crate in the sitting room of the house. But whenever Sophi was close by, the bird would flap and dance around until she was let out to join the dog for a cleaning or cuddling session. “And if Sophi wasn’t there, Bramble would go look for her,” says Sharon. “The kissing-licking thing was a two-way street: Bramble would ‘beak’ Sophi in return for Sophi’s kisses.”
In the evening, sometimes bird and dog would spoon on the carpet and fall asleep. “Bramble wouldn’t go back into her crate until we all went to bed.”
Once Bramble was older and less fragile, she was introduced into the aviary so she could fly around. But Sharon says the owl swoops down regularly to spend time with Sophi, always in the mood for a mutual grooming, bird–dog style.
{ENGLAND, 2008}
The Owelet and the Greyhound
GREYHOUND
The fastest—and
oldest—of all breeds, the
greyhound is a sweet,
good-natured dog that is
most associated with
the sport of dog
racing.
LONG-EARED OWL
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Aves
ORDER: Strigiformes
FAMILY: Strigidae
GENUS: Asio
SPECIES: Asiootus
What strange scenario is this? It begins normally enough, with a dog lounging on a sofa. But look again: There’s an owl perched between his paws. Oh, and they’re both watching TV.
That’s Torque the greyhound and his little buddy Shrek, a baby female long-eared owl that the pup took under his paw soon after the bird hatched at the Ringwood Raptor Center in Hampshire’s New Forest, in the United Kingdom.
When the owl first hatched, Torque became excited and wanted to sniff the new arrival. “I had taken Shrek the owlet out of the incubator, and then comes this big nose into my hand,” recalls John Picton, head falconer and Torque’s owner. “That was followed by a big old tongue to say hello. It was quite funny.”
In some bird species, a parent bird may kill one of its young to give the other a better chance at survival. To protect Shrek from infanticide, the owlet wasn’t placed back with its mother after hatching. Instead, John took the tiny knot of feathers home to care for her there. As the chick became steadier on her feet, John let Torque and the little bird get better acquainted. First, he’d feed Shrek her meals of marsh rats and quail in the same room where Torque was eating, then he’d hold the bird out so Torque could get a look and a sniff. Torque would lick the bird, and the bird would give the dog a gentle peck on the nose. Eventually, “they were bounding through the house together, really enjoying each other.” In a comical game, Shrek stood still until Torque wandered by and then pounced on him. The two cuddled on the couch, seeming entranced by East Enders and Coronation Street, among other favorite shows. They’d hang around outside like loving siblings, with Torque standing guard over the feathered youngster or following her as she toddled across the grass.
As Shrek’s legs got stronger from roaming with Torque, she soon realized she had another set of limbs to stretch. And once she found her wings, Shrek began to explore a world where Torque couldn’t follow. The owl was placed in an aviary at the raptor center with other birds, and Torque continued his life on the ground, a little lonelier than before. But whenever Torque trotted past the bird
s’ house, “there would be a very nice hoot from inside, Shrek to Torque,” says John. It seemed dog and bird remained friends—even from afar.
{WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 2005}
The Papillon and the Squirrel
PAPILLON
The papillon’s origins can be traced back to 16th century French courts, where it was bred as a companion dog. Because of its winglike ears, it was given the French name for “butterfly.”
EASTERN GRAY SQUIRREL
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Rodentia
FAMILY: Sciuridae
GENUS: Sciurus
SPECIES: sciurus carolinensis
Finnegan fell. It was a forty-foot tumble from his family nest high in the tree, yet somehow the tiny squirrel survived the landing. His future, which looked pretty bleak on the way down, turned brighter when a woman found him squealing at the base of the trunk. She took him to an animal-loving friend for a little TLC.
That friend was Debby Cantlon, a woman who was constantly caring for wildlife in need—injured raccoons, abandoned kittens, any creature down on his luck. She took the tiny smudge of an animal in, gave him a name, warmed him up and bottle-fed him, then tucked him into a bed of heated blankets on the floor of her dogs’ unused kennel.