Submitted by Brenden Garrett
August 2009
Their love for each other is so pure and simple; it goes beyond size and species. Both animals have managed to successfully survive their rough beginnings. But even more than that, they each seem so happy to have found a friend.
Dave Siddon,
WildLifeImages.org
Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask
for what you want.
—Joseph Wood Kruth
“Another box of kittens dumped over the fence, Dave” one of our
volunteers greeted me one summer morning. I groaned inside. As the founder
of Wildlife Images Rehabilitation Center, I had more than enough to do to
keep up with the wild animals in our care. But somehow, local people who
didn’t have the heart to take their unwanted kittens to the pound often
dumped them over our fence. They knew we’d try to live-trap them, spay or
neuter them, and place them thought our network of approximately 100
volunteers.
That day’s brood contained four kittens. We managed to trap three of them,
but somehow one little rascal got away. In twenty-four acres of park, there
wasn’t much we could do once the kitten disappeared—and many other animals
required our attention. It wasn’t long before I forgot completely about the
lost kitten as I went about my daily routine.
A week or so later, I was spending time with one of my favorite “guests”— a
giant grizzly bear named Griz.
This grizzly bear had come to us as an orphaned cub six years ago, after
being struck by a train in Montana. He’d been rescued by a Blackfoot Indian,
had lain unconscious for six days in a Montana hospital’s intensive care
unit, and ended up with neurological damage and a blind right eye. As he
recovered, it was clear he was too habituated to humans and too mentally
impaired to go back to the wild, so he came to live with us as a permanent
resident.
Grizzly bears are not generally social creatures. Except for when they mate
or raise cubs, they’re loners. But this grizzly liked people. I enjoyed
spending time with Griz, giving him personal attention on a regular basis.
Even this required care, since a 560-pound creature could do a lot of damage
to a human unintentionally.
That July afternoon, I approached his cage for our daily visit. He’d just
been served his normal meal—a mix of vegetables, fruit, dog kibble, fish and
chicken. Griz was lying down with the bucket between his forepaws, eating,
when I noticed a little spot of orange coming out of the blackberry brambles
inside the grizzly’s pen.
It was the missing kitten. Now probably six weeks old, it couldn’t have
weighed more than ten ounces at most. Normally, I would have been concerned
that the poor little thing was going to starve to death. But this kitten had
taken a serious wrong turn and might not even last that long.
What should I do? I was afraid that if I ran into the pen to try to rescue
it, the kitten would panic and run straight for Griz. So I just stood back
and watched, praying that it wouldn’t get too close to the huge grizzly.
But it did. The tiny kitten approached the enormous bear and let out a purr
and a mew. I winced. With any normal bear, that cat would be dessert. Griz
looked over at him. I cringed as I watched him raise his forepaw toward the
cat and braced myself for the fatal blow.
But Griz stuck his paw into his food pail, where he grabbed a piece of
chicken out of the bucket and threw it toward the starving kitten.
The little cat pounced on it and carried it quickly into the bushes to eat.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That cat was one lucky animal! He’d approached
the one bear of the sixteen we housed that would tolerate him—and the one in
a million who’d share lunch.
A couple of weeks later, I saw the cat feeding with Griz again. This time,
he rubbed and purred against the bear, and Griz reached down and picked him
up by the scruff of his neck. After that, the friendship blossomed. We named
the kitten Cat.
These days, Cat eats with Griz all the time. He rubs up against the bear,
bats him on the nose, ambushes him, even sleeps with him. And although Griz
is a gentle bear, a bear’s gentleness is not all that gentle. Once Griz
accidentally stepped on Cat. He looked horrified when he realized what he’s
done. And sometimes when Griz tries to pick up Cat by the scruff of the
cat’s neck, he winds up grabbing Cat’s whole head. But Cat doesn’t seem to
mind.
Their love for each other is so pure and simple; it goes beyond size and
species. Both animals have managed to successfully survive their rough
beginnings. But even more than that, they each seem so happy to have found a
friend.
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