Beijing's Cat Death Camps

The Economist recently had a piece about the tentative birth of the animal rights movement in China.

"Animals are treated dreadfully in Chinese farms, laboratories, zoos and elsewhere. There are grim factories where thousands of live bears in tiny cages are tapped for medicinal bile. At safari parks, live sheep and poultry are fed to lions as spectators cheer. At farms and in slaughterhouses, animals are killed with little concern for their suffering."

The treatment of animals is a controversial issue. There's a whole spectrum of positions, from those who never even think about it to militant vegans. Without getting into these arguments here, we think most people would agree that unnecessary suffering is a bad thing, and that to suffer, normal human-level intelligence isn't required (human infants don't have that yet, for example). All you need is certain elements of a central nervous system, something that at least all mammals have.

So we're quite saddened to learn from the Daily Mail that the authoritarian government of China has decided to "clean up" Beijing of cats for the Olympics, as it previously did with dogs, and that it does it in a pretty disgusting way. To be clear, we're not trying to minimize the other evil things that have been done by the Chinese government, we just want to add this to the list.

The official line is that cats carry diseases, but the unofficial reason is the same one that made the government move factories and "beautify" the city.

Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being [...] sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Hundreds of cats a day are being rounded and crammed into cages so small they cannot even turn around.

Then they are trucked to what animal welfare groups describe as death camps on the edges of the city. [...]

The cull of Beijing's estimated 500,000 cat population is certain to provoke international outrage as it comes just over a year after the Chinese were criticised for rounding up and killing stray dogs across the country.

Some groups are protesting, but they fear punishment from the government.

One cat lovers' group negotiated the release of 30 pets from one of the compounds in Shahe, north-west Beijing, but said they were in such a pitiful condition that half of them died within days of their release. [...]

"When we went inside, we saw about 70 cats being kept in cages stacked one on top of the other in two tiny rooms.

"Disease spreads quickly among them and they die slowly in agony and distress. The government won't even do the cats the kindness of giving them lethal injections when they become sick. They just wait for them to die.

A castle to fit Prince Chunk

The Associated PressFat Cat Prince Chunk

New Jersey's most famous fat cat, dubbed Prince Chuck, got a clean bill of health -- and new digs.

"Aside from being grossly obese, the cat is completely healthy," Catherine Harr, board president of the Camden County Animal Shelter told the Daily News Thursday after the 44-pound feline's blood test results were reviewed. "No diabetes. No thyroid problem. Nothing. He was obviously overfed."

Chunk's flawless test results came as a southern New Jersey family was selected to take in the portly pussycat who has captivated the nation. The anonymous family has two cats of their own and are elated over the news they landed the 10-year-old tabby.

"The father is actually building Chunk a castle over his litter box," Harr said. "He'll definitely be treated like a prince."

The un-finicky feline wound up at the Camden shelter two weeks ago after his owner, Donna Oklatner of Voorhes, lost her home to foreclosure.

Mother of all cats lived in Mesopotamia - 130,000 years ago

From Persians to Siamese, Bengals to Burmese, the cats of the world come in all shapes and sizes.

But the ancestry of every one can be traced to the same incredibly specific source, say scientists.

Scroll down for more ...

The Near Eastern wildcat is the domestic cat's closest relative

All domestic felines are descended from a group of around five in the Middle East around 130,000 years ago, a study suggests.

The findings overturn the traditional view that the first domestic cats were tamed by the Ancient Egyptians just 4,000 years ago.

Instead, they were bred thousands of years earlier by farmers in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation, it is claimed.

Researchers have traced the domestic feline family tree back to a small family of wild cats living on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates in modern-day Iraq.

They also found that the closest living relative of the pet cat is the Near Eastern wildcat - a shy and rare creature which resembles a large tabby.

Dr Andrew Kitchener, a zoologist at the National Museums Scotland and co-author of the report in the journal Science, said: "This shows that the origin of domestic cats was not Ancient Egypt - which is the prevailing view - but Mesopotamia and that it occurred much earlier than was thought. The last common ancestor of wildcats and domesticated cats lived more than 100,000 years ago.

"However, we do not know exactly when cats were domesticated, although it is likely to have been around 10,000 years ago when other animals like cattle and goats were domesticated."

Read more...

• British crayfish could be wiped out by alien species with the plague

The study used DNA samples from 979 wild and domestic cats to piece together the feline family tree. They looked for markers in mitochondrial DNA - a type of genetic material passed down from mothers to kittens which can reveal when wild and domestic cat lineages were most closely related.

Aside from accidental cross-breeding, domestic cats are not closely related to the wildcats of Europe, Central Asia and Southern Africa, the team found.

But their DNA is closely related to the Near Eastern wildcat. The tests showed that the ancestors of domestic cats broke away with their wilder cousins up to 130,000 years ago.

Dr Kitchener said the findings were supported by the discovery of a cat skeleton apparently buried with its owner in Cyprus 9,500 years ago. At the time it was found, three years ago, it was not clear whether the animal had been domesticated or was a Near Eastern wildcat.

The experts believe cats originally sought out human company, attracted by rodents infesting the first agricultural settlements. These early farmers would have found the animals extremely useful for protecting their grain stores.

Over the generations they selected the friendliest and most reliable creatures for breeding, creating the domestic cat in all its forms and forging the peculiar relationship between human and feline which has lasted to this day.

Although the first domestic cats appeared in Mesopotamia, it was the Egyptians who turned them from a working animal into a pet, creating a cult which was passed on to the Romans and exported around the world.

Although the domestication of the cat has been pushed back thousands of years, it still took place long after dogs were tamed.

Scientists believe the first wolves and wild dogs began to live alongside hunters around 100,000 years ago.

At first the creatures lived outside travelling camps, scavenging off kills and providing a useful alarm system for the hunters.

Copy Cat Copied

Well, sort of.

I could not resist:

These are the kittens of Copy Cat, the cat that was cloned back in 2001/2 at Texas A&M. They’re lovely. They were produced the old-fashioned way with a father who was also produced the old-fashioned way. Here’s an article about it.

Do you remember CC? To the right is one of the pictures that was going around when she was first introduced to the world, and to the left is one of her a little over a year after she was born, with Rainbow, the cat of which she is a genetic copy. No, they don’t look exactly alike. Nor do they behave alike, in fact. Their personalities are very different. Evidently their bodies are using the same DNA in different ways. Here’s an article about that. [Update: This is a good opportunity to point out that there's indeed a lot more to biology and genetics than just DNA... How does one get from the DNA to a complicated final organism? What are the mechnisms involved? That's a hugely important area called Development. Yvette in the comments brings up an aspect of this when remarking upon the origins of calico patterning in (mostly female, rarely male - because of a battle between two X-chromosomes) cat coats.]

Choclet the cat

All child-rearing books warn about cats becoming jealous. After studying the reactions of our cat, our conclusion is that it is not about jealousy: babies crying sound like fighting cats. So a cat could react aggressively thinking there is an intruder. In our case, Choclet is a scaredy cat and so just runs away the moment he cries. He's now beginning to get used to Julian. (Don't worry, we never leave them alone together in a room.) (If you're a cat lover, you might like to know that Amazon has a wonderful list of cat books.)

The Truth About Cats and Birds?

I’m trying to get to bedrock on conflicting assertions and policies related to free-ranging cats and songbirds. The American Bird Conservancy has posted a new video criticizing an array of programs across the country through which well-meaning animal lovers “trap, neuter and release” feral cats.

Apture™

Search the Web for “ trap, neuter, release” or “ feral cat coalition” and you’ll find such efforts from Indiana to Florida to Washington State. The idea is that, once sterilized, populations of wild cats will slowly decrease on their own accord by attrition. The video, and other experts on bird-cat interactions, strongly dispute this, noting that in some cases enduring communities of feral cats are a magnet for cat owners seeking a place to dump their unwanted kittens or cats.

Officials at the Humane Society of the United States say the video presents a one-sided view of a legitimate problem. In a phone chat, Nancy Peterson, the head of cat programs for the society, said the bird group’s proposed solutions, including cat sanctuaries, were completely untenable in a world of limited resources. She described a variety of places where trapping and neutering greatly reduced cat populations. Ms. Peterson added that cat owners ideally should keep their cats indoors or within a confined area, to avoid adding to wild populations (and the killing of birds) and that cat lovers feeding stray or feral animals should seek help in getting them neutered. Otherwise, she said, populations can quickly spiral out of control.

A recent article in the Humane Society’s magazine has identified something of a middle ground in this heated arena:

“Is there such a thing as a cat-person or a bird-person?” asked a 2008 press release from the Audubon Society of Portland in Oregon. “It’s not about birds versus cats; it’s about protecting birds and cats.”

It was an unusual statement from a wildlife organization, but that group’s conservation director, Bob Sallinger, defies some of the stereotypes that animal advocates have about conservationists. For one, he’s skeptical of lethal control solutions aimed at protecting one species from another— something many environmentalists support when they believe a species is threatened. “Where does it end?” Mr. Sallinger said. “I struggle with that.”

And despite the years he spent overseeing a wildlife rehabilitation hospital that receives a steady flow of the victims of house cat attacks, he doesn’t hold a grudge against cats either. Almost a third of bird species in Oregon are in serious trouble, Mr. Sallinger says, but “even if we solve the cat problem tomorrow, it’s not going to stop bird populations from declining. It would just be removing one pressure—and none of [the pressures] are going to be solved overnight.”

But many people involved with bird conservation are far less accommodating. I also contacted Suzie Gilbert, a neighbor of mine and the author of “Flyaway”, a book about her experiences as a bird rehabilitator. She’s always mainly focused on hawks and other raptors but has for years gotten calls from people who’ve come across songbirds wounded by cats. She sides, no surprise, with the bird group and pointed me to this passage in her book:

As a wildlife rehabilitator, I see firsthand the damage cats do to birds. Of all the ways human beings casually slaughter “protected” wildlife, letting domesticated cats outside is by far the most egregious, and the most easily shrugged off. People who wouldn’t dream of taking a shotgun and blasting a bird out of a tree let their cats outside, which accomplishes the exact same thing but in a slower and more horrifying way. The cat doesn’t need to tear the bird to pieces, either: one tiny nick will of a cat’s claw or tooth will subject the bird to enough bacteria to kill it, only it will take the bird one or two days to die. If the bird is a single parent feeding nestlings, they will all starve to death.

Precautionary measures simply do not work. During an 18-month period, a single cat roaming a wildlife experiment station killed over 1,600 birds and small mammals. A study in England showed that cats wearing bells killed more birds than cats without them; during a study in Kansas, a free-roaming declawed cat killed more birds than the cats with claws.

Those who profess to love the cats they let outside ignore the fact that the average life span of an indoor cat is 15-19 years, while the life span of cats allowed outside is two to three. Outdoor cats fall prey to cars, animal attacks (including dogs, wildlife and other cats), human abuse, poisoning, traps and a host of diseases, including rabies. Those who “love” their cats might want to show it by keeping them inside, where they are safe and secure. And perhaps those who profess to “love” nature shouldn’t advertise their hypocrisy by allowing their pets to slaughter the dwindling wildlife populations around them.

Here’s a video produced by the Humane Society about the issue and the trap, neuter, release strategy:

Apture™

Are there feral cats where you live, or attempts to control them? A separate, even more heated, issue is whether pet cats should be allowed to roam backyards and woods freely. I’m a dog owner. Our older dog has on occasion killed squirrels, a rabbit and at least (unforgettably) one skunk. Nonetheless, we choose to let the dogs explore our property and freely roam the woods on hikes. As far as I can tell, resulting wildlife kills are rare (squirrels climb trees, and our dog only wishes she could). But it’s still a value judgment.

Don't feed your cat table scraps

Subject: FW: Why you don't feed your cat table scraps

Comments: Despite its resemblance to the infamous "Giant Mutant Cat" hoax of 2000, this image and the healthy feline specimen depicted therein both appear to be authentic. I could find no obvious signs of fakery or manipulation. Scoff if you will, but a recent Guinness world record holder for longest cat, a Maine coon in Chicago nicknamed "Leo," measured 48 inches from nose to tail and weighs 35 pounds. This old fellow could give Leo a run for his money.

Update: Additional images posted on www.kimmershow.com, the website of Georgia radio show host Kim Peterson, confirm that this hefty cat, whose name is Riley, and his owner, Martha, are quite real.

Update on the update: As of February 2008, the website mentioned above no longer exists.