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AP Photo/The Monitor, Gabe Hernandez
Sihil, an ocelot from the Cincinnati Zoo, stares Thursday April 19, 2012 at Santa Ana National Refuge in San Juan, Texas. People had the opportunity to view a live ocelot in its natural habitat before the 13th annual Ocelot Conservation Festival.
AP Photo/Frank Augstein
Polar bear cub Anori explores the outdoor enclosure at the zoo in Wuppertal, Germany, on April 23, 2012. Anori was born on January 4 and is becoming a visitor's highlight.
AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda
A Sphynx cat watches a referee during an international feline beauty competition in Bucharest, Romania, April 22, 2012. The contest, far less enjoyed by the cats than by the numerous visitors, was entered by more than 200 felines.
CU Independent/Andy Duann
A bear that wandered into the CU-Boulder dorm complex Williams Village falls from a tree after being tranquilized by Colorado Wildlife officials. The young bear landed safely on a padded mat. CU Police Spokesman Ryan Huff said the bear was likely 1-3 years old and weighed somewhere between 150-200 pounds.
Meet Geronimo, an amazing 2 year old cattle dog mix who skips! Yes, she skips rope - Double Dutch that is. And she skips Double Dutch better than I ever could as a kid. Her owner is Samantha Valle who lives in Long Island, New York. Samantha rescued then 3 month old Geronimo from a Missouri pound and began training her along with her six other dogs. Check out this amazing video below.
Steve Collier Photography
Watch Geronimo's amazing skipping skills here.
AP Photo/David Duprey
Birds perch on a branch during a spring snowstorm in Pembroke, N.Y., April 23, 2012.
Just a month after Busch Gardens took in a cheetah cub whose mother wasn’t caring for it, the park’s animal care team has identified the perfect four-legged friend for the 8-week-old cat: a 16-week old female yellow Labrador puppy.
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Busch Gardens Tampa is celebrating a milestone anniversary for a very special relationship. April 16th marked the one-year anniversary of the first time park guests got to see an 8-week-old male cheetah cub and a 16-week-old female yellow Labrador puppy start to strike up a friendship that the park’s animal experts expect to last a lifetime.
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Kasi, which is Swahili for “one with speed” and Mtani, Swahili for “close friend” spent only supervised play times together at first. Now, a year later, they live together full time at the park’s Cheetah Run habitat and even travel together to schools, events and television studios, helping the park’s education team teach the public about the plight of cheetahs in the wild and the importance of Busch Gardens’ conservation efforts.
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Although this is Busch Gardens’ first cub-and-puppy combo, it is not uncommon in the zoological community for a single cheetah to be raised with a canine companion. “Male cheetahs are social and often live together in coalitions,” said Tim Smith, a zoo manager who works with the cheetah team daily. “This social bond will be a very similar relationship, and they will be together for life.”
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Cheetahs are included on both the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list of vulnerable species as well as on the US Endangered Species Act list of threatened species. Only approximately 12,400 cheetahs remain in the wild.
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Busch Gardens supports the conservation of and education about cheetahs through the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, which has donated nearly $100,000 to cheetah efforts in Africa since 2005 and also helps fund conservation programs for white rhinos, marine animals and many other species around the world.
Matt Marriott/Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Kasi and Mtani spend a portion of each day playing together on the habitat, training with their keepers and exercising with the habitat’s lure system, designed to encourage the animals to do what cheetahs (and Mtani, too!) do best - run and chase.
See a video of Kasi and Mtani here.
AFP PHOTO / MARIUS BECKER
Baby polar bear Anori plays in the pool of her enclosure at the zoo in Wuppertal, western Germany, on April 17, 2012. Anori's father is "Lars", who is also the father of Berlin's famous deceased polar bear cub "Knut".
AP Photo/Amy Sancetta
Great Blue Herons tend to their nest high atop a sycamore tree at a rookery in Bainbridge Twp., Ohio on Thursday, March 29, 2012. Males bring females sticks to build a nest as a dating and mating ritual.
AFP PHOTO/Orlando SIERRA
White-tailed deers are pictured at 'Rosy Walter' zoo, on El Picacho hill in northern Tegucigalpa, on April 18, 2012.
