More Tigers!

And the Tiger Project continues! Just a short update today as I'm pretty tired. We haven't really done anything else except tigers anyway, so there is not a whole lot to report. Two tigresses were done on Wednesday (both had the GIFT done) and an Indochinese tiger named Sari was done today (She is pictured below on the right waking up from anesthesia). She had the ICSI procedure done. As planned for the project, no oocytes were collected from her, but several embryos were transferred in. The last tigress will be done on Saturday and will likely also have ICSI done, depending how many viable embryos we have by that time.

I can say with certainty, though, that I have certainly learned the previously described Lesson 1 pretty well. Since we are working with these tigers so much, I have gotten the opportunity to dart a few individual tigers several times. One tigress in particular definately hates me! I entered her holding area the other day to dart her (yet again) for the project, and as soon as she saw me, she went balistic. I wish I had been able to film her. It was quite a show! There was much roaring, snarling, charging, and bristling. In fact, she was so frustrated that she couldn't eat me due to the cage, that she started biting the large log in her cage, actually throwing it towards me at one point. Even so, I was able to dart her!

And pictured below is a picture of the paw of Tiksi, the largest female Siberian Tiger that we did. I should of something in there for scale!