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

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Anjana is a two year old chimpanzee that plays a surrogate mother role for two 21 days old white tiger cubs that had to be separated from their mother due to safety reasons, when a hurricane flooded their sanctuary.

However, that’s not the only case. China York the care taker at The Institute of Greatly Endangered Species in South Carolina, along with the help of Anjana, who has been with her ever since the day she was born. Together they take care of many such animal babies

“Anjana has been with China, side by side, ever since she was born and has joined her in caring and raising baby animals,” said Dr Bhagavan, founder of TIGERS. She began copying everything that China did, so this is how her caring instinct was born. Today, the motherly chimpanzee bottle feeds these babies and forms a close bonding with them making them feel as though she was their own mother.

Images copyright Barry Bland @ Barcroft Media

Isabella, is a golden retriever at the Safari Zoological Park that recently got famous. Famous for nursing three white tiger cubs born one week ago who were abandoned by their mother.

© AP Photo/The Daily Reporter, Rob Morgan/Scanpix

Though it’s unusual for dogs to care for tiger cubs, Isabella who just recently weaned her own puppies, had nothing against it. Actually, she doesn’t really care if these are hers or not. She licks them, cleans them and feeds them. Tom Harvey, the owner of Safari Zoological Park said that “it’s a miracle”.

Though they are adorable right now, these tigers will grow 300 pounds big. Will Isabella care for them when they are adults? Shouldn’t take long. Here’s a video!

Later edit: I wonder if Isabella can feed white lion cubs, too. Hmmm …

Harrison Ford (aka Indiana Jones), Bo Derek and Robert Duvall have recently joined forces with the World Bank to save the the tigers from extinction. A century ago there were at least 100,000 tigers. Studies revealed that there are currently less than 4,000.

Though the World Bank is more likely to support poverty and developing countries rather than wildlife projects they are now behind the new Tiger Conservation Initiative. Other members include wild life experts, scientists and governments, all working for the same purpose, to protect tigers.

The large predators, which I think are the most beautiful cats on Earth, are being killed for their skins, meat and body parts which are used in traditional Asian medicines.

Image by Oyvind Solstad

Russia and Nepal are examples where governments took initiative and managed to save the felines. Saving the world tiger population is much harder.

“This is a problem that cannot be handled by individual nations alone, it requires an alliance of strong local commitment backed by deep international support,” said World Bank President, Robert Zoellick.

Kudos to these three famous Hollywood actors for supporting the cause and a quick note to World Bank. Do it faster, or there won’t be any tigers to be saved. Besides, with Indiana Jones on your side, how can you lose?