This Stray Cat Broke Into A Lynx Enclosure At The Zoo And Now The Animals Are Best Friends
A stray cat wandering into a zoo enclosure sounds like the start of a disaster, but this one turned into a surprisingly sweet animal friendship. At the St. Petersburg Zoo, a domestic cat found her way into the lynx enclosure and ended up doing the one thing nobody expected, winning over a wild cat that should have seen her as prey.
The Eurasian lynx is a medium-sized predator with a diet that can include hares, squirrels, foxes, wild boar, and even deer, so a house cat would normally seem like an easy target. Instead, the two animals formed an unlikely bond that quickly caught attention and made the zoo story even more memorable.
What happened next is the kind of zoo moment people do not forget.
In 2007, a stray calico wandered into the St. Petersburg Zoo and roamed around, seemingly aimlessly, until she happened upon the lynx enclosure.
Inside the enclosure, the lynx paced back and forth. Wild cats do not pace back and forth when living in their natural habitats, but according to upgradeyourcat.com, big cats in zoo enclosures pace for a sad reason:
The most common reason big cats, like tigers, lions, and panthers, tend to pace back and forth when they are in their enclosure is because they are stressed.
Why did the tiny calico kitty break into the lynx enclosure? No one can know for certain, although some speculate that the cat may have been hungry and smelled scraps. Cats are also notoriously great comfort companions for people and other animals in distress. Purr-haps this sweet calico cat saw a creature in need?
The mere thought of the small mammal getting close to the predator may have caused your heart to skip a beat, but the lynx did not attack. Instead, the lynx approached her new friend and began to lick the cat!
This zoo-cat chaos echoes the owner who rescued a stray cat and watched it join their Husky pack.
Officials and employees of the zoo were shocked, to say the least. Fearing for the cat's safety, they went into the enclosure and removed the calico. Alas, that was not going to work because the little stray cat found her way back in rather quickly.
The unlikely duo had bonded, forming an unbreakable friendship.
Realizing that a friendship had formed, the zoo officials decided they should let the cat stay. They gave her a name: Dusya. The lynx, whose name is Linda, spent the next few years completely inseparable from each other.
People flocked to visit the zoo, delighted to see the unlikely pair bonded, often grooming each other, and the zoo regularly released endearing videos of the companions.
This friendship proves many things, one of which is that the love and comfort a cat can provide knows no bounds.
Check out this short video of the purr-fect pals in action!
They're just SO sweet!
Want the same “stray cat meets lynx” bond? Read how a cat and lynx formed an unbreakable friendship after the unexpected reunion.
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