Week 226 (21 - 27 December 2007)

327 mounts Madonna

Christmas was a quiet time for the tigers of Laohu Valley. Since there was not a lot of interaction between TigerWoods and Madonna, TigerWoods was introduced back into the 9 ha camp with Cathay on Saturday afternoon. The tigers were fed a wildebeest carcass, which was more than enough food for them to digest and be lazy for several days. Though it rained continuously for 3 days, the tigers only came out to play in the rain after they had finished most of their food.

However at the end of this week an interesting thing happened. On Thursday morning, since the water trough in the 4 ha camp needed to be cleaned, Madonna was introduced into the quarantine camp. Initially it seemed everything was like before: Madonna quickly entered 327’s cage and 327 ran out immediately. But he only spent a short while in the quarantine camp before he came back into the cage again and drove Madonna out. Then he just sat down in the cage and didn’t come out again. TigerWoods appeared near the fence of the quarantine camp. Madonna chuffed at him and began to pace with him.

One hour later, 327 finally came out of his cage. The sliding gate was quickly closed behind him. Once Madonna saw 327 coming out, she ran to him and chuffed at him frequently, even laying down in front of him as if inviting him to mate. 327 rubbed heads with her and then fell down on Madonna, kicking her several times like a puppy, before turning around and holding her in his paws. Suddenly he realized something and got up quickly and went off. Madonna followed him and kept seducing him. All of a sudden 327 quickly climbed onto Madonna and mounted her. While mounting, 327 made long and strange loud sounds, but Madonna kept silent all the time. 327 quickly jumped off and ran away even though Madonna didn’t turn back and hit him at all. They mounted 5 times in total in an hour’s time. None of the mounting seemed successful and 327 seemed to be in the wrong position most of the time. He was almost as clumsy as TigerWoods had been initially, mounting Madaonna too high on her back and not penetrating at all. Since they had shown interest in each other, Madonna was kept in the quarantine camp with 327 for some time.