Tippi Hedren, actress and animal rights activist, says she will take care of the two tigers that lived on Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.

“We have so suddenly lost,” Tippi Hedren was quoted as saying, “one of the most beautiful and enchanting entertainers on our planet.”

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Cricket is a unifying religion in India, a nation of vast religious and cultural diversities and Sachin Tendulkar its undisputed demigod. The greatest modern batsman the game has ever seen— and a man carrying a billion hopes and expectations every time he walks out to the center, has come out for the first time in support of the Tiger Conservation Program in the country.

Image by waqas

Tendulkar dedicated his brilliant innings of 160 to the cause of Tiger Conservation and asked people to help restore the habitat of a vanishing Tiger. So why is one sportsperson’s call out to the people of one nation to save the Tiger that significant? He told the media that at the start of the century there were nearly 40,000 tigers in India, which were now reduced to 17,000. He compared the situation to his time in school when he was told there were once dinosaurs and hoped we dint have to tell future generations about tigers the same way.

With the savvy media already picking up on the issue in a big way and youngsters talking about it, this probably is the most meaningful step towards tiger conservation in India taken in a long, long time!

Star-power and celebrity endorsement of a green and planet-friendly cause always help propel it into spotlight, but Sachin Tendulkar is much beyond a ‘star’ in the region. He has been a model ambassador for the sport for 20 years that he has played, has stayed on the pinnacle of the sport for all those years and most importantly is one individual whose words are repeated by the media a million times over and taken to heart by everyone who is both a fan of the game and otherwise.

The Indian Cricket Team has officially endorsed the tiger conservation campaign on its tour to New Zealand and even has a poster on its dressing room that says ‘Extinction is forever’.

We’re game!

It’s not their real names. The tiger’s name is Vallejo Akaasha which is Californian for Tony. The dolphin’s name is Maverick which is Californian for Flipper.

The two characters met at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California.

Flipper spoke to Tiger – see the bubbles?

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Veterinarians in central India carried out a blood transfusion on a 7-month old wild tiger that had been beaten by angry villagers. The blood for the female tiger was forcefully donated by captive adults in a zoo.

The reason for all the hubbub is that India’s wild tiger population is on the decline. 100,000 a hundred years ago to 3,600 six years ago and just 1,500 or so now. Chinese kill them for medicine taken from body parts and others just want a tiger rug.  Villagers attempted to kill the young tiger out of fear.

A problem faced in India is blood grouping for the animals. And this tiger, nicknamed Juhi could not share her blood type. The cub is still in serious condition.

Let’s hope the tiger makes it and stays away from other such villages, eh?

I thought cats were afraid of the water. I thought big cats were big afraid of the water. Apparently not. A one-year old tiger jumped in with a female trainer to do a water dance in South Carolina. Yeah! If she called me into the water to dance, I’d go, too.

Wouldn’t it be cool if animals and people could ‘dance’ together in all areas of life? And not just in the pool? Well, it’d be great to get along with all God’s critters except for snakes wanting to give me a massage. I’ll pass on that. Write to GP and let us know how you think animals and people can get along better. Any ideas?

Images source DailyMail – Copyright Barry Bland / Barcroft Media

For all those that thought cats can’t swim we have news for you. They can if they are being taught, and that’s exactly what Dr Bhagavan Antle did for the last 25 years.

A young lion cub is being taught how to swim

Tiger loves to get his paws wet for a good swim

Baby orangutan learns how to swim

A swimming tapir, enjoys life underwater

Born in Arizona on a vast cattle ranch and with a passion for wild and exotic animals, Dr Bhagavan Antle is now the director of T.I.G.E.R.S and is considered one of the foremost animal trainers in the country with more than 350 bit cats trained for movies, TV commercials, and live performances. Would we have fun if tigers would play with us? Probably not!

I salute his lions swimming lessons but I think animals should be left alone in their natural habitat and not used to entertain humans.

Well, we have already discussed a bit about when tigers eat men here at Greenpacks. And we know who the most fearsome kittens in the world are, too. Not to mention, which celebrity wants to save the giant feline. Can you say Indiana Jones? But, what happens when man becomes dinner for their cousins, the lion? A mentally-ill man in Zimbabwe was invited to dinner, as the main course, to a pride of lions. Three leg bones, two fingers, three ribs and his private parts were all that were found left of a man who was last seen at a motel. The lions spit out his blood stained clothes.

Get this… a guard saw the whole thing! The guard heard a man scream, then hid somewhere safely, peeped out and watched the lions attack the man and otherwise enjoy a free meal. With guards like that don’t we all feel safe now? It seems that once lions feed on a human, they want dessert, more humans. I think alligators are the same. What did one alligator say to the other? “I like eating people. They are chewy on the outside and crunchy on the inside.”

So, who is responsible when a human finds himself in the way of and on the unexpected dinner menu of lions, and tiger and bears? Oh, my?

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Four tiny kittens, known as prionailurus rubiginosus, were born at a zoo in Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent.

The rusty spotted cats are about the size of a rat when fully grown and weigh a whopping 40 grams, about one third that of kittens of domestic cats.

The difference, these little guys don’t know how small they are.

In the wild, they are found in Sri Lanka and parts of India. They are also fearless.

“A female with kittens will defend them without thinking of herself. They will quite happily attack us – they are so small we have to be careful not to tread on them,” says one zoo keeper.

“In their own minds these cats are tigers – they think they are much bigger than they really are. They are quite fearless.”

These four kittens are part of a breeding program to ensure they are protected from any catastrophic event that might threaten their extinction.

Lemme see, that would be us trying to protect the fearless. From whom? Us, probably.

The cats will attack and eat anything they can catch not mindful that they might be dinner for some much larger creature. They are nocturnal so as to not be easy prey for birds and bigger cats.

Reminds me of the bumble bee. The bee doesn’t know he can’t fly and does it anyway. GP wonders what these little cats could do if we would just leave them alone.

What do you think of capturing animals to ‘protect’ them?