Mole Alert: Living With Tigers

08/26/2009

Yikes, Stripes!

If you're a fan of Into the Pride, Dave Salmoni's amazing tale of life among the lions, you'll want to check out Thursday's rebroadcast of  Living With Tigers, airing at 7 p.m., just an hour before "Pride."

Remember in his recent Mole interview, Dave talked about the differences between lions and tigers? This documentary is the ideal way to compare and contrast. It's the story of Ron and Julie, a pair of tiger siblings born at the Cincinnati Zoo. But their lives have not been spent behind bars checking out the visitors.

Instead, big-cat expert Dave and John Varty, a conservationist/filmmaker, taught the growing cubs to survive in the wild. They transported Ron and Julie to South Africa so the striped duo could learn to live new and different lives, and explore new territory for their species. (fast fact: tigers are native to India, Siberia and Asia,but not Africa!).

If you've never seen the story of Ron and Julie, you'll be fascinated to see how these tigers earned their stripes in adapting. Hey, if the stars of Into the Pride watched, maybe they'd feel more inclined to cooperate with Dave!