Animal Welfare

  Chapter Three Three Rescues More       There was a superstitious belief in the African landscape, believed by many of its inhabitants and denied by many others, that black leopards were embodiments of immense misfortune. The same superstition would not have been widely believed by Asiatic creatures, due to black leopards being far more plentiful in the Asian continent. The king cheetah could only hope that his clan’s matriarch would be comfortable with a black leopard cub being amongst her clan, and that she would not lose too many subordinates if she accepted the cub into her clan. It was approaching sunset when the king cheetah and the painted dog made it back to their clan’s territory with the two orphaned leopard cubs. The clan had begun feeding on a rhinoceros mother whom their black-backed jackal companions found trapped in dried mud. The rhinoceros’ skin was too thick for the jackal family to have bitten into themselves, but they luckily had th...

  Chapter One The Dog and the Cheetah     A lone survivor of lions’ wrath, a solo dog needed new mates. Allies of spots and of backs o’ black were with whom she was bonded by fate. Black and brown and white is her coat. Her kind is the most distinct. Her whole pack dead, and less dogs to befriend – – – the distinct is becoming…… extinct.   ––––– Song of the Packless Dog     It was a bright afternoon over a South African savanna when a cheetah was scouting about with ten unusual companions of his. Whereas most male cheetahs form coalitions upon nearing maturity with three or so other male cheetahs, usually including littermates, this cheetah had been found orphaned as a cub with no siblings near him nor in proximity to his nest. He was too young to have been able to follow his mother whenever she looked for prey, and one day, she went on what ended up being her final hunt. The orphaned cub was guarded from predators by an un...