Charles Hedgecoth Sr. and Diane Smith of Locust Grove, Georgia run a charity called Noah’s Ark. Nine years ago, they took in a baby lion, tiger and bear, and the three are inseparable now. Smith says, “They love each other.” Video at the HuffPo, more photos at The Chive.
Update 1/14/09 – by Alex: Story at Telegraph, stolen images at The Chive is delinked.
There’s no way of knowing whether the tiger that made a meal for five men was really the last Indochinese tiger in China, but no one has seen any others in years. Kang Wannian of Yunnan Province in China claims he killed the tiger in self-defense last February. Then he ate it.
The only known wild Indochinese tiger in China, photographed in 2007 at the same reserve, has not been seen since Kang’s meal, the Yunnan-based newspaper Life News reported earlier this month.
The paper quoted the provincial Forestry Bureau as saying there was no evidence the tiger was the last one in China.
A local court sentenced Kang to 10 years for killing a rare animal plus two years for illegal possession of firearms, the local web portal Yunnan.cn reported. Prosecutors said Kang did not need a gun to gather clams.
Four villagers who helped Kang dismember the tiger and ate its meat were also sentenced from three to four years for “covering up and concealing criminal gains”, the report said.
The Indochinese tiger is on the brink of extinction, with small populations in Laos, Vietnam. Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Cburnett)
If you think having to "share" your bed with your pet cat is bad, that’s nothing compared to what Riana Van Nieuwenhuizen has to do: the sanctuary worker shares her South African home with really, really big cats: four cheetahs, five lions, and two tigers!
Riana bought her first cheetah, Fiela in 2006, after realising the big cats were in trouble and heading for extinction with only 1000 left in Africa.
She left her full time job working for the department of justice – a position she had held for 22 years – and found temporary employment on a game ranch where she could raise her beloved big cat. [...]
The cats in Riana’s own home are truly part of the family and are allowed to roam freely.
Imagine the size of their litterbox! Amy Oliver of the Daily Mail has more: Link (Photo: John Lienbenberg/Barcroft Media)
Users use coloured dots to indicate the position of the shoulder, hips and tail and the upper and lower margins of the image; the programme does the rest. It essentially unwraps the striped pattern from the tiger’s flank and works out how it would look if it were laid out flat. It then compares the new image to every existing one and gives them a score based on how similar they are. The software is freely downloadable.
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