We had tiger and piglets before, but the zookeepers in china found something new: a group (a streak? an ambush?) of tiger cubs had befriended some newborn chicks!
Workers at Zhejiang Wenling Zoo in Taizhou city put the chicks in a cage with the four month-old tiger cubs.
A zoo spokesman told People's Daily: "We wanted to bring out the savage nature of the tigers while they were still cubs."
But keepers were surprised to see the tigers initially shy away nervously from the chickens.
"Then in no time, they started playing together. Maybe in their eyes, there are no enemies, only friends," added the spokesman.
Link - Thanks Hanah!
Zoos are just totally unnatural places for wild animals to be spending their lives. And in a country like China, where even many human rights are ignored, I fear for the well being of the animals in captivity there.
And predation is largely instinctive. That's why Sigfried and Roy are retired and why the cute little kitten you adopted keeps bringing you rat heads.
It's not something they can 'unlearn'.
You know what? Tigers underwater are freaky as Hell!
http://throughweb.net/?p=26
Brrrr!! O_o
Plus, off the top of my head I can't think of any natural habitat where tigers have ever hunted chickens in the wild. That probably has something to do with it as well. There are also other factors to consider. I really don't understand why people would be surprised about this event.
Lastly, with the amount I've seen stuff like this reported, it's become pretty apparent to me that situations like this must be more or less common, or if not common then fairly repeatable.
I'm such a killjoy, aren't I? Okay, I'll admit, I'd find it pretty cute if I saw it. :)