When I was a young thing my parents took my too the Washington D.C. zoo where I heard this true story: In the years just leading up to my visit the zoo had built a new building to house Bengal and Siberian tigers. A central theme to this building was the fact that tigers will not cross water deeper than they are. The tigers were in their habitat and they were seperated from the human visitors by deep moats that the tigers could see but the humans could not. It gave the impression that one could just reach out and touch the cats, if one had a death wish. The evening of the opening of the new building a party was thrown for the hoi-palloi, and you could imagine that the hoi gets palloi in D.C. All went well until the appetizers came out and it was discovered that the "fact" that tigers will not cross deep water was more of a suggestion. When the pigs-in-a-blanket and little crab puffs came out the tigers, from dowager to cub, lept in the water, swam to the human side of things and put on the feed bag. The humans, being the clever animals that they are, quietly departed and allowed those heigher on the food chain to have a snack.
I just read a book, "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel and its a story about a tiger riding in a boat, so maybe it could happen. Its a neat book.
Amazon says: "Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination."
3 Comments:
Or should that be do Tigers pay to ride in boats (especially if they know that hippos are about)
When I was a young thing my parents took my too the Washington D.C. zoo where I heard this true story: In the years just leading up to my visit the zoo had built a new building to house Bengal and Siberian tigers. A central theme to this building was the fact that tigers will not cross water deeper than they are. The tigers were in their habitat and they were seperated from the human visitors by deep moats that the tigers could see but the humans could not. It gave the impression that one could just reach out and touch the cats, if one had a death wish. The evening of the opening of the new building a party was thrown for the hoi-palloi, and you could imagine that the hoi gets palloi in D.C. All went well until the appetizers came out and it was discovered that the "fact" that tigers will not cross deep water was more of a suggestion. When the pigs-in-a-blanket and little crab puffs came out the tigers, from dowager to cub, lept in the water, swam to the human side of things and put on the feed bag. The humans, being the clever animals that they are, quietly departed and allowed those heigher on the food chain to have a snack.
I just read a book, "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel and its a story about a tiger riding in a boat, so maybe it could happen. Its a neat book.
Amazon says:
"Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination."
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