Tiger By the Tail

Let’s change things up and start with a classic Russian love story. This tale features Boris and Svetlaya who grew up in the same orphanage after being rescued from the wild in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. The two unrelated Amur tiger cubs were raised in captivity before being released into the wild, more than 100 miles apart, at the ripe old age of 18 months. Boris, as it turns out, had the eye of the tiger. (Cue the Dr Zhivago soundtrack … or, if you’d prefer Eye of the Tiger. Either works.) “Scientists tracked the cubs until, more than a year after their release, something strange happened: Boris walked over 120 miles, almost in a straight line, to where Svetlaya had made a home. Six months later, Svetlaya gave birth to a litter of cubs.” (Whoa, whoa. Easy Tiger.) NYT (Gift Article): 120 Miles of Russian Forest Couldn’t Keep These Two Tigers Apart.

+ In a possibly related story, a humpback (no pun intended) whale made one of the longest and most unusual migrations ever recorded — more than 8,000 miles. Researchers think the trek was due to “climate change depleting food stocks or perhaps an odyssey to find a mate.” Let’s go with the latter. It is hump day after all. Whale makes epic migration, astonishing scientists.