Week 206 (3rd – 9th August 2007)
Love Triangles...
August is known as the windy month, because it heralds the beginning of a new season. The continuously blowing strong wind brought the new season into Laohu Valley, echoed by our female tigers that also came into their season one by one.
On Saturday afternoon, when TigerWoods passed Madonna he began to smell her genital area. At the beginning Madonna went off immediately but then she lay down in front of TigerWoods as if inviting him to mount her. TigerWoods did so immediately. The first mount didn’t last long but then the next one happened. This time TigerWoods mounted Madonna for almost half a minute. His posture has improved a lot, but it was still not true mating. Altogether they mounted 6 times that afternoon. They mounted another 6 times the next afternoon, twice on Monday morning and 3 times on Monday afternoon. There was one instance where TigerWoods not only moved his rear but also roared. They mounted 6 times again on Tuesday afternoon and both tigers roared. However it was still quite apparent that none of these mounts succeeded.
Madonna then turned her attention to 327 and began to roll on the ground. Cathay would not give in but also rolled on the ground. 327 looked at Cathay for a while but then went back to Madonna. He watched Madonna who was pacing in front of him for a long time.
Madonna’s oestrus lasted for 4 days and she calmed down by Wednesday. Then it was Cathay’s turn. It could already be seen in her actions to 327 on Tuesday. She was allowed to go into the quarantine camp on Wednesday, however 327 was busy eating his blesbok carcass for the whole afternoon and didn’t even come out to have a look at Cathay.
On Thursday afternoon, Cathay had direct interaction with 327 in the cage. Though Cathay tried to seduce him by all methods, all 327 thought of was how to get rid of Cathay. Finally 327 got annoyed and began to snarl at Cathay. He even hit Cathay, forcing her to go back to her own cage. Poor Cathay was still chuffing at him. However it seemed she would have no chance at getting close to 327 again. It was decided to let TigerWoods try his luck. After the gate between the 9 ha camp and the quarantine camp was opened, TigerWoods went into the quarantine camp as if he knew something good was waiting for him. He explored the camp for a while before he met Cathay face to face. The two tigers hadn’t met face to face for a long time. Both of them were very excited and chuffed a lot at each other. When they began to play, it was not like competing for dominance as before but they gently slapped each other. They head rubbed and salivated all over each other for half an hour, stalking each other, running everywhere as they used to. However, Cathay also displayed definite seduction behavior, lying in front of him as if inviting him to mount. Initially TigerWoods seemed very cautious, but instead of avoiding her he kept walking around her. Finally late afternoon, for the first time, TigerWoods mounted Cathay. What happened next was just like firewood meeting the flame. They mounted 10 times in less than 1 hour, which was more than TigerWoods mounted Madonna for the whole afternoon several days ago at the peak of Madonna’s season. Apparently TigerWoods was changing his position each time he mounted Cathay. Once when they mounted behind the pole shelter, both of them roared and at the end Cathay slapped TigerWoods and he jumped off immediately, which looked from a distance very close to real mating. Though it was quite dark then and with the pole shelter obscuring them, it was hard to be absolutely sure.
At this stage it looks like there is much more hope for successful mating between TigerWoods and Cathay. As for 327, it was decided to introduce Madonna to him some time later. It seems that the tigers will decide who they are going to mate with and no amount of human pressure to do otherwise will change their minds.