dustbunniesproject

Who's a cute, loveable ball of fur then?

So the prodigal tiger’s returned to his owner, and the excitement and thrill of truly living in the American perception of Jozi, Africa, has come to an end… Can you feel the breeze caused by the collective sighs of relief from every livestock owner and poodle connoisseur in the countryside?

Panjo’s short taste of freedom grabbed a lot of people’s imaginations. He got his own Twitter account. Savannah got an ad out in zero seconds flat (wonder why Nando’s didn’t?). Amateur filmmakers went hunting for him in Bronkhorstspruit – and found him. Supermarkets sponsored food for the search party. A poor caracal was caught, wrongly called a tiger, and hopefully released – no-one has said a word about it yet… Animal Planet sent their trackers Mad Mark and Mike – who called on the trackers from the the Kruger Wildtuin – who used a Weimaraner called Zingela to find tigger.

Why was it so, well, exciting? Cos tigers are cute yet deadly and could rip a man to shreds? Cos animals tug at the heartstrings? Cos he looks like Garfield after a lasagne binge? Maybe we just sympathise with Panjo’s plight, since he clearly has an owner who, despite loving him, doesn’t know much about Tiger 101, particularly “the safe transport of a ten ton cat” (Give or take a ton). And he has to wear a collar, and can’t frolic in a forest somewhere.

Or perhaps we’re all just so stuck in our lives that we root for anyone who tries to stick it to The Man for a while. And who better to stick it than a tiger? I’m just glad he made it home alive and some trigger-happy idiot didn’t take a pot shot to fulfill his chick’s lifelong dream of a tiger rug in front of the fireplace. “But he was going to eat me!”

Now what? Will Panjo stay with his owner? Or get stuck in red tape in the backyard of an SPCA somewhere? We’ll see…

Tags: Animal Planet, caracal, escaped tiger called Panjo, Garfield, Kruger Wildtuin trackers, Mad Mark and Mike Tennant, Odd finds Panjo, Odd Sodd performance artist, Panjo the tiger, Weimaraner called Zingela

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 20:20 and is filed under Personal ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.