A very unlikely love story
It’s a beautiful world, but it can also be a lonely one, especially for a baby deer who’s lost her mother. But it seems love certainly does move in mysterious ways, for little Bambi has found comfort in a rather unusual friendship – with a tatty old turkey called Noël.
The extremely odd couple live at an extraordinary zoological, botanical and cultural park on the outskirts of a tiny Belgian village called Brugelette, a 35-minute drive southwest of Brussels. Pairi Daiza – ancient Persian for heaven or paradise – was created 20 years or so ago by the charismatic entrepreneur Eric Domb, who has filled it with wonderful artworks and artefacts collected on his travels worldwide. They range from a real Indonesian Flower Temple, to stunning elephant carvings from Bali; from an exquisite Chinese tea house to a mosaic floor fashioned out of semiprecious stones.
Mr Domb’s menagerie includes magnificent lions, hippos and elephants, awesome rhino, gentle giraffes, curious lemurs, colourful birds of every shape and size, in fact practically all the exotic fauna you could name.
But among the 5,000 creatures great and small there are also some less flamboyant beasts, including the cute and ‘cuddlies’ down on the children’s petting farm. Here among the goats, ducks and piglets you’ll find Bambi and Noël. Their story is one of hope and happiness, and of finding companionship and, yes, even love in the unlikeliest of places…
Bambi the fallow deer arrived at the park in 2003 as a frightened orphaned fawn. She’d been handed in at a parrot-rehabilitation centre in Holland, where Pairi Daiza keeper David Bataille arrived one day to collect a cockatoo for the park. He noticed the forlorn fawn, just a few days old, lying alone in a corner, fragile and not eating, so he asked the keeper about her.
Many fawns that become cruelly separated like this die from shock. It is thought Bambi’s mother had been run over by a car, as she’d been found wandering by the side of the road. But, determined this would not be Bambi’s fate, David, who had hand-raised many farm animals, took her home.
Once there, the kind-hearted keeper bottle-fed her for eight weeks, every couple of hours to begin with, then twice a day. His dedicated care worked and Bambi made it.
Eventually, when she was big and strong enough, he took her to work with him at Pairi Daiza; after taking various health tests and being confined to quarantine, Bambi found a forever home at the petting farm. She had become too tame and used to humans to be released back into the wild where she would not have survived.
She was perfectly happy to be with the other animals and meeting and greeting guests at the park, but she developed no particular attachments. Until six years ago, when Noël arrived. Our feathered friend was simply dumped at the park by a member of the public.
It was a freezing day in December but the 11-month-old turkey looked very healthy so had obviously been well-looked after.
‘We joked it was probably meant for someone’s Noël dinner but then they decided they couldn’t kill him so dropped him off here,’ says zoological director of Pairi Daiza, Steffen Patzwahl.
Each year the park receives many unwanted pets from members of the public who can’t afford or are unable to cope with their animals any more.
Noël went to live at the petting farm – turkeys can live beyond 12 years in captivity – and a love story began. No one noticed when Bambi first decided the turkey needed a good lick, but before long, the attentive grooming sessions became a daily ritual.
True, the turkey was not initially enamoured of the deer’s ardent show of affection. But now, while he plays hard-to-get for a few minutes, he quickly succumbs and even hops up on to a fence for eye-to-eye contact with his amour. The keepers report that the chums will call out sometimes when they can’t see each other, then frantically search the pen for their friend until they are reunited once again.
David, who understandably has a special bond with Bambi, is bewildered by the friendship that blossomed between her and Noël. Even the park vets have no explanation for the strange behaviour, other than that Bambi likes the taste of Noël, so she enjoys grooming his feathers. Deer like salt, although turkeys do not have sweat glands.
As for Noël, well perhaps he just welcomes any attention that doesn’t involve stuffing and a hot oven…
To find out more about Pairi Daiza, visit www.pairidaiza.eu
The extremely odd couple live at an extraordinary zoological, botanical and cultural park on the outskirts of a tiny Belgian village called Brugelette, a 35-minute drive southwest of Brussels. Pairi Daiza – ancient Persian for heaven or paradise – was created 20 years or so ago by the charismatic entrepreneur Eric Domb, who has filled it with wonderful artworks and artefacts collected on his travels worldwide. They range from a real Indonesian Flower Temple, to stunning elephant carvings from Bali; from an exquisite Chinese tea house to a mosaic floor fashioned out of semiprecious stones.
Mr Domb’s menagerie includes magnificent lions, hippos and elephants, awesome rhino, gentle giraffes, curious lemurs, colourful birds of every shape and size, in fact practically all the exotic fauna you could name.
But among the 5,000 creatures great and small there are also some less flamboyant beasts, including the cute and ‘cuddlies’ down on the children’s petting farm. Here among the goats, ducks and piglets you’ll find Bambi and Noël. Their story is one of hope and happiness, and of finding companionship and, yes, even love in the unlikeliest of places…
Bambi the fallow deer arrived at the park in 2003 as a frightened orphaned fawn. She’d been handed in at a parrot-rehabilitation centre in Holland, where Pairi Daiza keeper David Bataille arrived one day to collect a cockatoo for the park. He noticed the forlorn fawn, just a few days old, lying alone in a corner, fragile and not eating, so he asked the keeper about her.
Many fawns that become cruelly separated like this die from shock. It is thought Bambi’s mother had been run over by a car, as she’d been found wandering by the side of the road. But, determined this would not be Bambi’s fate, David, who had hand-raised many farm animals, took her home.
Once there, the kind-hearted keeper bottle-fed her for eight weeks, every couple of hours to begin with, then twice a day. His dedicated care worked and Bambi made it.
Eventually, when she was big and strong enough, he took her to work with him at Pairi Daiza; after taking various health tests and being confined to quarantine, Bambi found a forever home at the petting farm. She had become too tame and used to humans to be released back into the wild where she would not have survived.
She was perfectly happy to be with the other animals and meeting and greeting guests at the park, but she developed no particular attachments. Until six years ago, when Noël arrived. Our feathered friend was simply dumped at the park by a member of the public.
It was a freezing day in December but the 11-month-old turkey looked very healthy so had obviously been well-looked after.
‘We joked it was probably meant for someone’s Noël dinner but then they decided they couldn’t kill him so dropped him off here,’ says zoological director of Pairi Daiza, Steffen Patzwahl.
Each year the park receives many unwanted pets from members of the public who can’t afford or are unable to cope with their animals any more.
Noël went to live at the petting farm – turkeys can live beyond 12 years in captivity – and a love story began. No one noticed when Bambi first decided the turkey needed a good lick, but before long, the attentive grooming sessions became a daily ritual.
True, the turkey was not initially enamoured of the deer’s ardent show of affection. But now, while he plays hard-to-get for a few minutes, he quickly succumbs and even hops up on to a fence for eye-to-eye contact with his amour. The keepers report that the chums will call out sometimes when they can’t see each other, then frantically search the pen for their friend until they are reunited once again.
David, who understandably has a special bond with Bambi, is bewildered by the friendship that blossomed between her and Noël. Even the park vets have no explanation for the strange behaviour, other than that Bambi likes the taste of Noël, so she enjoys grooming his feathers. Deer like salt, although turkeys do not have sweat glands.
As for Noël, well perhaps he just welcomes any attention that doesn’t involve stuffing and a hot oven…
To find out more about Pairi Daiza, visit www.pairidaiza.eu