Tag Archives: wildlife

SHERMAN THE TIGER

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FLEETING FUSION WITH A FURBALL (for National Cat Day, October 29, or any day)

Have you ever been transformed by contact with an animal? Intuitive communicator Marta Williams observed, “Animals have a unique way of affecting our hearts. They sidle in closer than humans do.” That’s been true with our dogs, and there’s also a special awe I feel when I see or interact with wild critters.

In 1995, when our family lived in Evanston, Illinois, I heard of an event at DePaul University to raise money for the care of abandoned and abused big cats. Partly due to the movie, “The Lion King,” which had just come out the year before, our nine-year-old and six-year-old were immensely interested in big cats, so we went to the fund-raiser. Our younger girl wore her favorite pants, with Simba the lion on the thigh.

We thought we’d see real lions and tigers in cages, but arrived to find them close at hand, walking around a large room with handlers guiding them on leashes. Apparently, the animals had been recently fed because adults were allowed to approach the big predators! Children, understandably, were warned away. (They could be seen as bite-size prey.)

We kept our distance and perused the informative displays along one side of the room, learning about Big Cat Rescue, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, and the university’s wildlife program. We noticed people lined up on the other side of the room to see a young tiger, so we joined the line. Just as we approached the chair where a woman held a four-month-old tiger named Sherman, he started to squirm and snarl.

“Sorry, I think Sherman needs a break,” the woman said, holding a leash as she set the tiger down. She started to walk away, then paused when the young tiger walked over to me. She looked at me and asked if I’d like to sit down and hold Mr. Grumpy. In less than a heartbeat I was in her chair, arms out. Our daughters sat on each side of me, and I held Sherman, feeling a fleeting fusion with the wild as he settled into my lap. It was a happiness like no other.

“He calmed down,” his handler observed with a smile. My turn was quickly over as others stepped up to hold the curious cub.

Checking my journal for that day, October 29, 1995, I saw a two-sentence entry, as if my words were inadequate for what had happened: I held a four-month-old tiger today. I cannot go back to the way I was.

Barbara Wolf Terao is the author of Reconfigured: A Memoir, published by She Writes Press in July. She and her husband, Donald, live on an island in the Salish Sea near their children, who were not, after all, eaten as tiger snacks. Author website: barbarawolfterao.com (Originally posted on Storied Stuff 10/29/23)

This is Buttons, our daughter and son-in-law’s cat, who has a wild side of his own. (The trucks belong to our grandson.)

Turtle Trails

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I went down to the dock to take a swim but got distracted by the wildlife.  There was a green heron on the swim raft.  A green heron!  I’d never seen one up close before.  They are described in The Sibley Guide to Birds as the most “solitary, secretive” heron and yet this one stayed put even as I walked to the end of the dock to get a good look at him.  (I say “him” because he looked like a hunched-over vicar wearing a cape of dark feathers.)  I talked to him as he marched about, lifting his legs higher than necessary, as if he were wading.

“Hello!  Are you the one who’s been pooping on our swim raft?”  He did not deny it, preening his rufous chest feathers with his long, black beak.  “Well,” I told him, “I won’t take it personally.”

As I sat on the dock, I noticed our resident turtle swimming under the wooden slats.  The huge snapper settled his turkey-platter of a shell in the seaweed and became almost invisible.  Then I noticed a smaller turtle swimming nearby.  A relative of the ancient one under the dock?  The dinner-plate size turtle stuck her(?) head out of the water and watched me, so I talked pleasantly to her and wished her a safe winter in the mud at the bottom of the lake.

“Blessings to you, turtle,” I said and was surprised to hear a low growling noise from the turtle as she submerged and swam away.  Brown blobs followed after her, flowing right toward me, and I realized she was moving her bowels as she went.  An editorial comment?  I tried not to take it personally.  And I decided to wait till spring to go swimming in that Wisconsin lake again.