Depressed Caged Tiger Cheers Up After Being Given Pet Mice

[Tuesday Afternoon]

By Sean Kelly, Sat, February 28, 2015
A caged tiger at a zoo in Romania, who had become depressed after the loss of his partner of 13 years, cheered up when he made friends with two mice that were originaly given to him as a snack.

The tiger, named Sandokan, had been at the zoo with his partner for 13 years before her death. Workers at the zoo in the Eastern Romania town of Galati brought him a new female companion, Samira, but Sandokan ignored her. Unsure of what to do, the staff decided to release two mice into Sandokan's cage, hoping that a snack would cheer up the inconsolable tiger. To the staff's surprise, however, Sandokan didn't eat the mice – the three became fast friends. According to workers at the zoo, Sandokan let the mice run around his cage and even play with his fur.

"After his partner died last year we became very worried about Sandokan because he stopped eating and began gnawing at his own tail. It was very clear that he was mourning the loss. Other zoos tend to use medical treatments to cure animals of this sort of thing but that would have meant administering the drugs with a tranquilliser gun, which can be very traumatic for the animals," spokesman Madalin Serban said. "So we wanted to come up with a better solution and then we hit upon the idea of giving him a few live mice to play with, assuming that he would probably eat them. But instead he befriended them, making them into his new pals.

"Mice are great pets for humans as they are friendly and happily will interact but we didn't reckon a tiger would want them as a pet, but he did and now he is back to his old self. He happily lets the mice run around and play in his fur and the three live together just great."

[cui bono]

1. I made friends with my snack as well.

But eventually I ate the cheese and crackers.

[femmocrat]

2. It reminds me of the story of the man and the snake....

When the tiger eats the mouse, he will say, "you knew I was a tiger when you picked me up!"

[Kber]

3. How long do mice live?

I see a potential problem.

[rurallib]

8. with a huge cat, I would say not too long

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. Get him a Dachshund

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. omg. is that not the cutest thing ever !!

[DeSwiss]

6. K&R!

- It's like a fairy tale come true. Only it's a tiger instead of a lion and he didn't have to get his paw stuck with thorns.

Other than that, it's almost exactly alike!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. oh yeah. it -is- exactly like that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_and_the_Mouse

[shenmue]

9. The squee is amazing!

[jmowreader]

10. If he's always eaten dead things, he might not have realized live mice are food items