Sometimes something happens which makes us question our understanding of our world. The following is paraphrased from a wonderful book titled The Compassion of Animals: True Stories of Animal Courage and Kindness by Kristin Von Kriesler.

GRIZ, a hulking 650 pound grizzly bear, rooted around in his lunch at Wildlife Images, an animal rehabilitation center near Grant's Pass, Oregon. In Griz's five-gallon feed bucket were apples, oranges, vegetables, kibble, chicken, and road-kill venison-a feast he was gobbling up with such pleasure that he did not notice a six-week old, orange tabby kitten clamber under the fence into his pen.

    The kitten, which weighed just over half a pound, had recently been dumped at the shelter and was forlorn and hungry. He cautiously stepped closer to Griz, sat down beside him, and meowed to ask for food.

    As griz looked up from his lunch, Dave Siddons, the shelter's founder, watched in alarm. "Oh God", he thought. "Griz is going to eat that kitten!"

    But Siddons would never be able to reach the kitten in time. At any moment Griz would undoubtedly swat him and kill him for an extra bite of lunch. Siddons wished that bears were not omnivores.

    Although griz was an extremely sweet natured animal, he could be just as violent as any bear when hunting for food. A train had slammed into him and damaged his brain when, as a cub, he's foraged for spilled grain on a Montana railroad track. A Native American tribe had crated him up and sent him, unconscious, to Siddons, who along with his staff, had nursed and hand-fed griz for weeks. After that coddling, the bear was too tame and gentle to survive in the wild.

    Nevertheless, the bear was not so gentle that he would stop himself from killing the kitten. With gritted teeth, Siddons braced himself for a tragedy.

    Griz looked down at the tabby and did nothing. Then he picked a chicken wing out of his pile of food, pulled off a little meat, and put it on the ground beside his paw for the kitten. The tiny creature pounced on the food and devoured it. Griz fed him a few more scraps.

    Later that day the kitten curled up on the bear's chest, in the crook of his arm, and napped with him. From then on, even after the kitten grew up and had acquired the name "Cat", griz shared his food with him. They played together like the best of friends. Cat would conceal himself behind the pine trees in the bear's one-acre pen, then leap out and swat Griz's nose. The bear often carried Cat around in his mouth, or let Cat ride around on his back. Sometimes griz licked Cat until he was clean and at night they even slept together.

    An unlikely friendship? Indeed. But proof that compassion may be the first step for animals-and humans- to live in harmony.

The Compassion of Animals also tells the stories of children which have fallen into gorilla's cages in zoos and have not been harmed by the gorillas. You may have heard of these inspiring incidents in the news.

Also recommended is a book called When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Susan McMcCarthy and Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.