Saturday, June 25, 2011

Baby Tigers

Baby Tigers!

During a recent trip to Brazil I began writing periodic emails to my family and a few friends.  This was such fun that I have decided to try a blog.  I have been involved with non-profit in Brazil for some years, but this blog is personal and does not reflect the opinions of the non-profit nor anyone else for that matter.  Please just take it as it is offered, as my observations, thoughts and accounts of my adventures and experiences.  If I have cool photos I will include them.

So First Post: Baby Tigers!
While on holiday to the Southern Oregon Coast, just south of the border my partner ‘Kevin’ said “Oh look a Game Park, let’s go!”
I was dubious, ranking a game park just slightly above the nearby prehistoric journey (or some such name) where giant dinosaurs snaked their extended necks from the dark primordial forest (Kevin liked the prehistoric journey too, but demurred in favor of the game park).  So, it was with reluctance that I forked over my sixteen dollars at the Game Park entrance.
“We have baby tigers!” the woman at the gate said, “You can pet them.”
I started to interrogate her: Why did they have baby tigers? Did people petting them harm them? Was this place like a circus?
She told me that the Game Park was started 44 years ago by a woman to breed endangered species and other animals, particularly large predators.  They had an elderly lion (We later saw him.  He looked tired.), but the woman told us that they had a young lioness to whom he had taken a liking--the result has been several cubs over the years.  However she said that the lion cubs were to large to pet.
“I’ll bet,” I thought, thinking Siegfried and Roy tiger attack,  “how large is large?” They later told me that it was usually around 100 pounds that they separate the animals from visitors.
“But we do have two baby tigers that are ten weeks old”
            It was early and the park had just opened, so there were only a few people.  Soon a loud speaker invited the few visitors to see the tigers.  We walked over to a small open enclosure.  The animal handler told us how tigers were endangered but through breeding them in captivity they were hoping to increase the population.  The handler then came back with two baby bottles and two little tigers.  They romped after him, leapt around making squeaky, low little growls while they played.  He then let in the visitors in pairs for a couple of minutes each.  The tigers actually liked to sit and play on peoples laps, and everyone young, old, jaded or not--including myself-- melted, the animal handler as much as anyone.  We were all smiling, laughing, completely taken with the sheer beauty and energy of these animals.  Their fur was rough and fluffy.
I feel privileged to have had this experience.  I often feel sad at zoos, the animals in cages, but I felt this place offered something more, that they were really trying to raise the populations of these endangered animals, while also giving people a memorable and amazing experience.  I wondered, as I watched the young children awed into silence when they touched the tigers, how an experience like this could draw them to be a vet or biologist.
I hope this perception I had of the Game Park is a reality; it is always insightful to have one’s stereotypical conceptions (how could something that calls itself a Game Park be anything but tacky?) be destroyed. 
And here are a few pictures of the baby tigers!