TIGERS DREAM IN COLORS

   Rodica Bretin                                      TIGERS DREAM IN COLORS   Despite the crowded streets, I arrived ten minutes early. The pathways of the Zoo were vacant. The animals slept, some in the sun, others in cement igloos that mimicked dens or burrows. I stopped in front of one of the cages− Panthera tigris altaica .     The Siberian tiger disliked the midday heat. It preferred the evening twilight, the nighttime breeze and the chunks of meat the zookeepers tossed over the fence from a distance. Born in the wilds of Siberia, the striped big cat had not come to Nova Scotia of its own accord. Caught in a poacher’s trap, it had endured a Trans-Siberian odyssey, starvation and beatings at the hands of Russian circus masters and the agonizing seasickness of a voy...