Holland - Unlikely Friendships for Kids: The Leopard & the Cow

for Kids

Book Three
The Leopard and the Cow

and Four Other True Stories of Animal Friendships

by

JENNIFER S. HOLLAND

WORKMAN PUBLISHING
NEW YORK

Copyright 2012 by Jennifer S. Holland

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

eISBN: 9780761172123

COVER: Rohit Vyas; INTERIOR: p. 1, p. 10, pp. 14-15 Rohit Vyas; p. 4 Sebastien Burel/Shutterstock; p. 6 Jennifer Hayes; p. 12 Eric Issele/Shutterstock; p. 18, p. 22, pp. 24-25, p. 26 Ron Cohn/Gorilla Foundation/koko.org; p. 28, pp. 32-33 Omer Armoza; p. 34 Houston Zoo; p. 38, pp. 42-43, p. 44 BARCROFT/FAME.

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Chapter One
The Leopard and the Cow

Chapter Two
The Gorilla and the Kittens 19

Chapter Three
The Dog and the Dolphins 29

Chapter Four
The Zebra and the Gazelle 35

Chapter Five
The Rhinoceros and the Warthog 39

Readers new to this series may want to know how I started writing about unlikely animal friendships. Heres the story.

A few years ago, I went scuba diving on Australias Great Barrier Reef. This is a very special place in the ocean. Thousands of different types of fish live in or around the coral reef.

I noticed a puffer fish swimming near me. The puffer fish was about the size of a softball. He was alone. The puffer fish did not seem to be afraid of me. I swam with him for a little while. He did not swim away.

I went back to the same area the next day. The puffer fish was there. This time, he was not alone. He was swimming with a school of fish called sweetlips.

Sweetlips are very colorful fish. They have wide mouths, which is probably how they got their name. Sweetlips do not usually swim with puffer fish. But that is exactly what was happening. The sweetlips and the puffer fish were swimming together.

I went back again the next day. They were still together! What was going on? Why were they swimming together? I thought it was very interesting that two animals from different species would be hanging around each other, like they were friends. It made me wonder if other animals became friends with animals that were very different from them.

I am a science writer. I write about animals. So I decided to write a book about animals of different species who had become friends. I had heard some of these stories before. The story of Owen and Mzee, a tortoise and a hippopotamus who became friends after surviving a tsunami, was already famous. But I went looking for stories I had never heard before. I talked with people all around the world. I looked at many photographs. Sometimes the animal friendships were so unlikely that I wondered if they were true. But when I checked them out, they were!

Five of those stories are in this book. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Jennifer S. Holland

In India, the cow is considered a sacred animal. It is a symbol of life because it never brings harm to other animals, plus it gives humans the gift of milk. This is why the people of India treat cows with great respect. They dont eat cows. They dont allow anyone to hurt cows.

Early one evening, a young leopard entered a small village in India and began wandering through the streets.

It would be a scary thing to see a leopard walking on your block. Leopards are larger than the biggest of dogs. Their sharp teeth grow to be two inches long. And they are predators.

They hunt and eat many different kinds of prey, including monkeys, reptiles, cowsand humans! So the villagers were right to be very afraid of the leopard.

The villagers did not want the leopard to eat any of their farm animals. When they saw the leopard go into the area where they kept many of their cows, they thought for sure that the leopard was going to eat one.

They decided they would catch the leopard, but then they saw an amazing thing: The leopard was lying down in the barnright next to a cow!

A leopard cuddling with a cow? How could that be? But it was true!

Not only did the leopard lie down with the cow that one time; he did it again and again. For the next sixty nights, the leopard strolled into the village, walked through the streets to the same place, and lay down with the same cow.

Sometimes the cow would lick the leopard from head to foot. The leopard seemed to love his tongue bath. He would close his eyes in delight.

This sweet little bedtime routine happened every night. Then one day, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

No one could explain why the leopard stopped coming. No one had any explanation as to why he had ever started visiting the cow in the first place. All we know is that cows are sacred in India. And friendshipseven the most unlikely onesare sacred everywhere.

This is one of the most famous examples of an unlikely animal friendship of all time. Its the story of a sweet gorilla named Koko and three tiny kittens, named All Ball, Lipstick, and Smoky.

Koko, a female gorilla who lives in California, taught to communicate using American Sign Language when she was very young. It is a language made up of gestures instead of spoken words. Since gorillas cannot speak as humans do, sign language allows Koko to express her thoughts and feelings in a way that humans can understand.

Kokos teacher had taught Koko to sign over 1,000 words. One of the words Koko knew how to sign was cat. This was not surprising. Kokos favorite books were Puss in Boots and The Three Little Kittens. Koko loved stories about cats. And now, Koko signed that she wanted a cat.

Kokos teacher gave Koko a small stuffed animal kitten. She thought this was what Koko was asking for. But Koko did not want a stuffed animal.