MADONNA’S THREE CUBS ARE A HANDFUL

Madonna & 327’s three cubs are now three months old. They were rarely seen for the past three months, under the remarkable care of Madonna in complete natural environment, isolated from even other tigers, never mind humans. However, now that they are mobile, we have to habituate them to humans a bit for a number of reasons. If they are too wild, we will have trouble handling them in times of veterinary need, such as illness. 

Princess was a good example. The governments require that these precious animals be microchipped and registered, but we failed to catch her for microchipping when she was two months old. When she was one year old, we gave another try, but this time it required sedatives, which tigers and cheetahs react notoriously badly.  However, we never managed to catch her, as she flew through the electrified gate between her camp and an adjacent one, after seeing what was done to her brother King Henry.

So wherever we can, we tried to avoid immobilizing the tigers to reduce the risks to them. 3-months old cubs are getting pretty strong to handle but in a month it would be impossible to handle without sedatives, particularly since they have such brute force. So we began the process of their habituation from a couple of weeks ago.

To begin with, a big wilderbeest carcass was laid out for Madonna and her family in the mini camp next to their 2ha riverine camp. Too big to drag it back into the dense riverine area for her family to consume, she resigned at calling her cubs out from the trees to supper eventually. The cubs revealed their beautiful and adorable little faces finally to us. They certainly required time to get used to us, as they kept running for cover into the bushes or behind the big tree. None the less, sometimes they would calm down and head back to where mom would be lying once they see the humans are not being too erratic.

A few days later, another young eland bull of about 300 kg was provided to Madonna. Having eland for breakfast for the first time in her life, she was initially unsure what to do, dragging one leg or another in her attempt to drag this huge carcass to the riverine area for her large family. But the eland is nearly three times her weight and refused to move an inch. She had to settle for this mini-camp again and gathered her kids from the trees and led them to breakfast.  By the end of the day, a significant dent had been made from the rear of the eland carcass. It was comical to see one cub’s head was nearly completely buried within the dent.

The cubs certainly regarded us humans as threats, despite mom Madonna’s encouragement to stay in sight for us. Every time we even made some movements, the cubs would dash for the bushes close or far. Yesterday morning I saw all three of them rushing to the corner of the little camp, at the junction with 7ha camp where TigerWoods is currently residing. TigerWoods’ was envious of the big eland next door and had spent the entire day crouching close by, never taking his eyes off the carcass.

When we became still, two of the cubs came out of their hiding and went over to mom again. After half an hour there seemed to be no sight of the 3^rd cub, as we looked into every bush through binoculars. I was just wondering how the 3^rd cub could disappear when Madonna all of sudden stood up and started walking to the closed gate that leads to the 7Ha camp. Seeing that it was closed she went back to her shade under the tree but repeated this 3 or 4 times. Suddenly I realized the increasingly loud chirping sound coming from TigerWoods’ camp was not a bird, but a tiger cub! I looked in that direction and saw the little head of the 3^rd cub behind the long grass.  That explained his magical disappearance but how on earth did it manage to get through to the other side of the fence???

Although TW didn’t seem to be bothered at all either by the cry of this little visitor or its intrusion, we quickly managed to guide him into the next adjacent camp-the quarantine camp. Madonna went inside the 7ha asa the gate was opened for her and she soon was reunited with her treasured baby, showering each other with head rubs and tender whines. Having been absent from this camp for several years, she clearly enjoyed its dense trees, long grasses and fresh smells, sniffing and jumping between tree trunks with the little cub trailing behind. 

I searched for potential holes in the fence and realized that the cub had crawled through from under the iron mesh, where it needed stones to hold it down onto the ground. We fixed it there and then.

Seeing mom vanishing out of sight for a while now, the remaining two cubs started calling. We left them to sort out their plan as to where to spend the day, certain that they would return to their food in the mini-camp.

Upon arriving in the tiger rewilding center in the afternoon, I could hear the loud cry of a cub from even far away. I walked around the camp to investigate, not wanting to scare them with the sound of the vehicle. What I saw was hilarious. Madonna and two cubs were crouched on the 7Ha side of the open gate, where the 3^rd cub was screaming at its heart content on the other side of the open gate.  After a while Madonna got up and walking through the gate to the 3^rd cub, rubbing heads and chuffing at him, intending to guide the cub into the natural 7Ha camp. She looked behind her once she crossed back into 7Ha only to see her 3^rd cub refusing to cross the threshold, for one reason or another. I believe this was the cub that crawled through the fence as the cub kept running over to that spot and looking under it.

The other two cubs were frolicking the grass and got further and further away which prompted Madonna to follow them. Seeing mom going nearly out of sight the 3^rd cub started his hysteric cry again, sounding so much like the cry of a human baby.

Poor Madonna was stopped in her tracks and turned back to her 3^rd cub, again trying to coax him into following her into the 7Ha camp, but to no avail. In the end, she called her two other cubs back and lied down again in the same spot on the side of 7Ha facing the cub on the other side of the gate. The four just watched one another. Again, I left them to sort out their arrangement for the night, confident they would make a final decision.

Clearly we had our job marked out for us for next weeks!

Jan 27 2012

Cat God at Valley of the Queens

Sunset Philae Temple

Nubian kid

Little Crocodile

It was an amazing trip to Luxor/Aswan. All that incredible and mysterious temples, tombs and giant statues..

But the one thing that ate my heart was a little cat at the Valley of the Queens.

He looked like my South African wild cat Sisi, and was strolling across the valley floor, apparently trailing a tomb guard, when I stopped him to stroke him. He rubbed himself against my leg, very content. When I had to leave, I called out to him, "Come, show me around". He looked at me, then looked back at his "master" who was looking at him with a silent command, uncertain who to follow. The cat looked visibly  tortured.."Should I follow this mad Chinese woman who showered me with attention? Or should I follow my servant who keeps me company all the time?" After some hard soul searching, In the end he choose to follow his "master".

Sadly I left my camera in the car. The cat's tortured look haunted me for the rest of the day and the thought of having no photo of him tortured me so much that I decided to go back to Valley of the Queens next morning to get a photo, before my flight out of Egypt.

The cat was of course not there. The tomb guards and police were puzzled about my visit but when they understood the purpose of my visit, they tried to search for the cat for me. The name of the  guard that the cat was following was Ibrahim. He told me in broken English that the cat was there in the morning and may have gone up the hills to eat something or gone sleeping somewhere. I looked up-vultures were hovering around near the top of those hills..

"Yesterday was cat but no camera. Today was camera but no cat". Ibrahim summarized my predicament with the feline race.

Cat Server Ibrahim Valley of Queens 

 I had to catch my plight out of Egypt so I appealed to Ibrahim to take a photo of the cat with his phone camera and emailed it to me. He must have taken sympathy for me and readily agreed. I felt imposing on him and offered him a small baksheesh, which is expected and asked for by almost everyone that a foreign tourist encounters. But to my complete surprise, he tried to decline it and I could even detect some embarrassment on his face.

Maybe, the cat chose Ibrahim for a reason..

P.S. Oberoi Towel Art:

TIGER MOTHERS ARE FANTASTIC MOTHERS

Ever since Huwaa was reunited with her family she would spend some time with mother and little brothers and some other time with King Henry to continue their bonding. King Henry is a gentle soul in the company of Huwaa, putting up with all her antics continuously, even though he has matured sexually and looking for females through calling and Huwaa is just too young for him.

Meanwhile, Hulooo is even more fascinated now that there are increased activities and excitement with the addition of Huwaa in his neighbouring camp. He spends significant among of time gluing himself to the gate between the two camps which does not please Cathay at all. Having charged through the fence to attack King Henry a few month before, she now decides her grown-up son Hulooo is the threat and picks a daily fight with him through the gate, destroying quite a bit of the metal mesh on her side in the process. Hulooo refuses to give way. Perhaps because he didn't socialize properly as a tiger that he doesn't know that he should do as Henry does -chuffing back at Cathay to appease her? Poor Hulooo- I wonder what goes on in his head? Does he find his little siblings so amusing to watch? Or  does he want to relive his childhood? Even at this age he is certainly pretty playful with his brother JenB, stalking and chasing him, and jumping around happily in the open grassland at times. JenB refuses to be drawn into the fight between his mother and brother, wondering what is fuss is all about and looking very puzzled and embarassed by the showdown.

 

Temporarily named Alpha & Beta, the little brothers emulated sister Huwaa's every step and follows her up the trees if she climbs it and down into the water drainage if she chooses so. No doubt Cathay finds in her a good baby sitter as her boundless energy could keep her little sons entertained to no bound, freeing up her time to pick on Hulooo.

I am continuously amazed at what good mothers the tigers are. Cathay always let her babies eat first even though she was so hungry. Reuniting with Huwaa means that she has to share food with one more mouth but she is as gentle to her daughter now as she was when Huwaa was a little baby. Once just after she started feeding on a leftover carcass, when all her children decided to follow her example and monopolized it. She just let them eat while lying a few meters away. Only when they have their share would she starts eating. When Alpha tries to take it over again, she would warn him off but never does she touch them a finger.

Madonna proves to be even more extraordinary. Being in the camp far more removed from any human activities and shielded from Cathay has given her added sense of security and she hasn't  once paced with a cub in her mouth during the two months since she gave birth on Oct 9th, unlike when she was raising King Henry and Princess which worried me sick but from which I also learned a big lesson and therefore put her into this fairly isolated camp. Since we accidentally saw she actually has three cubs, we wanted to catch them and microchip them when they are about two months and still easy. But first we need to understand their movement and find out where she hides them. Madonna wouldn't take the bait! One day she tried to distract us by walking to a completely different direction when she saw us on the watch and she wandered around pretending not to be interested in getting back to her cubs. She won this round.

The next day we shut her into an adjacent camp from early in the morning thinking she may call the cubs out sometime during the day, but we waited in shifts in vain -she didn't make a single call to her cubs. After the sunset I knew she won again so she was let back into her camp. One would have thought that after a whole day being away from her cubs she would rush to them. But NO! Seeing humans still around she took her time, smelling the grass and rolling on the ground as if she was in no hurry. Suddenly roars came from KH causing one of her cubs' reactive cry. Instead of running to her cubs, she ran in the opposite direction into the river! The crying cub emerged, puzzled why mom ran away, but quickly followed her in her foot steps...Clearly even during such emergency situation she did not forget to fool us..

I gave up on sighting them, never mind catching them and microchip them. We informed the vet Joseph not to bother being on standby any more and we will wait a month or two more till they become a bit more independent and can follow Madonna out of the cover.

Yesterday was the day I decided not to bother monitoring Madonna and her cubs. I was just watching Hulooo and JenB when loud cries of cubs came out of Madonna's camp, in response once more to KH's roars. I rushed over into KH"s camp from where I could see into Madonna's camp and there! She and her three mini tigers were again on the river bank on the other side, in the shade of trees. I battled to see them even through the Binos but I could see two cubs suckling for a while before Madonna decided it was time to get up and wandered off. The two suckling cubs were taken by surprise and looked puzzled but quickly followed mom away. 

I drove around to another side of the camp and saw Madonna patrolling the fences by herself. How on earth she give instructions to her cubs to stay undercover just puzzles me. I know how tigers invite others to participate in something -by chuffing, but how on earth do they tell them don't follow me out in the open and stay where you are?! I did see the tiger mothers snarl mildly when they get a bit annoyed from their cubs constant energetic play or when their cubs wouldn't let mothers eat at all,  so perhaps that's what they do.

I must confess that watching the tiger mothers and how they raise their cubs got to be the most gratifying experience one can have on this planet. I wouldn't exchange it with anything else.

-TigerLi from Laohu Valley Reserve

Dec 15, 2011