The Old "My #Cats Opened The Bottle Of Lube" Defense

Can this cat open a tempting jar? (Shutterstock)

 

We know that cats can open doors, but have you ever heard of a cat opening a bottle of lube? That's what one man, accused of statutory rape for sleeping with one of his high school students, claimed in court yesterday.

Richard Hovan was charged with criminal sex act and child endangerment, in addition to statutory rape, for his relationship with a 16-year-old student at Riverdale Country School. Hovan's fiancee at the time apparently discovered him with the topless girl in their Chelsea apartment back in 2012. The student testified she had been seduced by the MIT graduate and Price Is Right contestant and said that they were about to have sex when they were interrupted.

The Post, which had reported that he had only been doing "crosswords" with the student—who he described as troubled—to calm her down, wrote about the amazing cats:

The Riverdale prep school teacher on trial for allegedly having sex with his 16-year-old student came up with yet another bizarre excuse Thursday when probed about the tube of lubricant his jilted lover discovered on his coffee table. “My cats can open fridges — they open cabinets,” Richard Hovan testified nonchalantly in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Prosecutor Shanda Strain fired back, “So the cats could open a box? Take the lid off?”
Hovan answered, “I don’t know who could do it — because it wasn’t me.”

The prosecution also "revealed that Hovan exchanged a staggering 10,000 text messages and calls with the alleged victim between March and May 2011 — compared to the 3,000 he shared with" his then-fiancee, and questioned why the teen had to use the fire escape to leave the apartment if they were just doing crosswords.

 In the closing, the prosecutor reportedly said, "[h]ere, you have a teacher saying the cats ate the lube," while Hovan's lawyer said the student should have known whether he was circumcised: "If they had a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, a loving relationship…she would know."

Man, to be on that jury.

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Your Daily #Cat

 

Benny in the tree II by Tambako The Jaguar

A feline tribute to Leonard Nimoy aka Mr. Spock

 

Remember the episode of the original Star Trek series, Cat's Paw, where Spock felt "strangely drawn" to a black cat? As a cat person I would like to say, on behalf of all feline lovers, that we thank him for sharing that tidbit of gentleness to everyone then and for generations to come. Black cats are not evil, nor are they bad luck. They are the soul of sweetness and should be adopted with as much fervor as any other flavor of kitty. 

Here's that memory along with a little tribute to our friend who has begun the long voyage home. Live long and pawspurr, Spock, in the vast beyond where you wait for us all... 

Lin

Your Daily #Cat

 

Oyra on the branch by Tambako The Jaguar

#Cats put sight over smell in finding food

Feb 26, 2015

Cats may prefer to use their eyes rather than follow their nose when it comes to finding the location of food, according to new research by leading animal behaviourists.

Felines have a tremendous sense of smell and vision, but the new study by researchers at the University of Lincoln, UK, has for the first time investigated which sense they prefer to use under test conditions – and suggested sight may be more important than smell.

A group of six cats were placed in a maze which had 'decision' points – and the cats had to choose which avenue they took based on their preference for using images or smell. They were simultaneously presented with two squares of paper, each containing a different visual and odour cue. One combination of stimuli indicated they would receive a food reward, whereas the other led to no reward.

Once the cats had learned the rules of the game and received food rewards for correctly choosing either the visual stimulus or the olfactory stimulus, the researchers separated the cues (visual versus olfactory) to investigate whether the cats were using their eyes or nose to solve the task.

Four out of the six cats picked the visual cue, over the odour cue, to receive their food reward with only one cat preferring to use its nose and the sixth showing no preference. So it seems that when they had the choice, cats simply preferred the visual signals over the olfactory ones.

The findings have now been published by the international journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Evy Mayes carried out the research at the University of Lincoln while she was studying for her Masters degree in feline behaviour and welfare.

Evy, who is now working at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, explained: "Up until now we really thought that the sense of smell would dominate how cats view their world, but we are now reconsidering this and also the implications of how we manage them. At Battersea Dogs & Cats Home we make sure that our cats are housed in the best possible environment - one that respects the cat and provides each individual with whatever it needs in order to help it adapt to a rehoming environment. I was also particularly surprised by the speed at which the cats learned how to solve the task, which is very encouraging for future cat behaviour studies."

Professor Daniel Mills, who supervised the study and is based in the University of Lincoln's School of Life Sciences, added: "We live in a complex world and use all of our senses to make sense of it. This is the first time we have asked cats how they operate rather than assumed this from what we know about their senses. Another important finding from this work is the individual variability - different cats had quite fixed preferences, and this may have important implications for their welfare.

If there is a cat which has a strong preference for using its nose then simple changes in the smell of the environment might have a big impact on it, whereas, for others it may be insignificant. This work provides a unique insight into the important principles of attending to the needs of the individual rather than the population in general for good welfare."

Due to the small sample size, further investigation is required to infer a general preference for cats to use visual over olfactory stimuli when learning the location of food.

Explore further: Cat shelter findings: Less stress with box access More information: Animal Behaviour Science. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2015.01.003
Journal reference: Applied Animal Behaviour Science
Provided by University of Lincoln

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Scientists Create Music For #Cats, And Fur A Good Reason

The Huffington Post  |  By Macrina Cooper-White

Posted: 02/27/2015 

 

"Cats are not humans and humans are not cats and it is important that we humans, as the servants of cats, be aware of this difference."

That's Dr. Charles Snowdon, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He's been on a quirky mission to--yes, you're reading this right--create music for cats.

You can listen to some of his "meow-sic" here.

"We were motivated to make music for cats for two reasons," he told The Huffington Post in an email. "First, many pet owners told us that they play radio music for their pets while they are at work and we wondered if this had any value. Second, we have developed a theory that suggests that species other than humans can enjoy music but that the music has to be in the frequency range that the species uses to communicate and with tempos that they would normally use."

To create the cat music, Snowdon and his colleagues tried to mimic natural cat sounds, using sliding notes and high pitches--cat calls tend to be an octave or more above human voices. The researchers based the tempo of the songs on purring and suckling sounds.

Then came the moment of truth: the researchers tested their compositions on 47 male and female domestic cats in their homes. The kitties heard "Cozmo's Air" and "Rusty's Ballad," along with two human music pieces for comparison: Gabriel Fauré's "Elegie" and Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on a G String."

What happened? When the cat music was playing, the felines were significantly more likely to orient their heads toward it, walk toward it, and even rub up against the speaker.

"We interpret this as indicating that the cats showed a preference," Snowdon said in the email.
Now that the researchers have found music cats seem to like, they think it may have some important applications, like soothing stressed-out shelter cats.

"We think of cats as highly independent of their human servants, but there is some research showing that cats experience separation anxiety, which is greater in human-raised cats than in feral cats," he told Discovery News.

An article describing the research has been accepted for publication in the journal Applied Animal Behavioral Science.

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New Research Says Cats Can See Things That Are Invisible To Us

New scientific data shows that cats, long a symbol of mysticism, are able to see things that are invisible to us. Cats apparently see psychedelic stripes on flowers and patterns on the wings of birds that are completely invisible to the human eye. According to this study, cats, dogs, and some other animals are able to see types of light, like UV light, that we don’t see at all.

“There are plenty of things that reflect UV radiation, which some sensitive animals are able to see, while we are not,” said Ronald Douglas, professor of biology of the City University of London and co-author of the study. “For example, these may be certain patterns on flowers that show where the nectar is, or traces of urine of an animal. Also, reindeer can and see polar bears as the snow reflects UV radiation, while white fur does not.”

This enables animals like cats and dogs to detect animals with white fur on snow, whereas we might only see the white of the snow. Douglas argues that cats, dogs, rodents, bats, weasels, and okapis are able to detect significant amounts of ultraviolet radiation.

“For decades, we have known that many invertebrates such as bees see ultraviolet light,” continued Douglas, saying that even birds, fish and some reptiles were recently added to the same list.

“However, scientists believed that most mammals cannot see ultraviolet light because they have no visual pigment with maximum sensitivity to ultraviolet light, but instead have lenses like those of humans, preventing ultraviolet light from penetrating into the retina,” he said.

All of this explains why cats can become so enamored with ordinary objects like pieces of paper.
“We all know that ultraviolet radiation can be harmful,” said Jeffery in Discovery News.“I work a lot in the Arctic, where the UV radiation levels are too high as there is much snow and ice. The surfaces reflect 90% of UV radiation, with the result that animals are exposed to it. If you do not wear goggles, your eyes will hurt within the first 15 minutes.”

Scientists think that it  is possible that cats, deer and some other animals that can detect UV rays have a protective mechanism. Scientists also believe that UV light tends to create more blur.

“Humans are good at one thing: they can see more details,” added Douglas and concluded: “Maybe that’s why we have a lens that ‘blocks’ ultraviolet light. If you do not have it, the world might appear more blurred.”

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Officials trying to trap, relocate cat-eating Orono #bobcat

Courtesy of Jodi Clayton

This bobcat has been seen around several houses in Orono and has killed at least one house cat. A Maine game warden says residents should keep their pets inside as much as possible and avoid leaving food that may attract the bobcat.

By John Holyoke, BDN Staff

Posted Feb. 26, 2015

ORONO, Maine — A hungry bobcat that’s eaten at least one neighborhood pet has drawn the attention of state wildlife officials, who are trying to trap and relocate it to a more suitable location.

Maine Game Warden Jim Fahey said he heard reports of a bobcat in the area of North Main Avenue, Crosby Street and Park Street, not far from the back entrance to the University of Maine campus.

“I have spoken to a couple of different folks in Orono about that bobcat,” Fahey said earlier this week. “Basically, the words of caution are, ‘People should practice proper pet containment practices, keeping an eye on small dogs that might go outside of the home, certainly keeping their cats in.’”

Fahey said he has never heard a report of a bobcat actually attacking a human, but said reminding small children to avoid approaching any wild animal would also be prudent.

The weather could be playing a role in bringing this bobcat to a populated area.

“What has happened, and it’s not uncommon during [periods of] bitter cold and deep snow, is bobcats come into settled areas and try to make a living around built-up areas, looking for easy meals,” he said.

Courtesy of Jodi Clayton

A bobcat checks out its surroundings in an Orono neighborhood recently. The bobcat has been seen around several houses and has killed at least one house cat. A Maine game warden says residents should keep their pets inside as much as possible and avoid leaving food that may attract the bobcat.

Those “easy meals” can come in many forms, he said, including other wild animals like grouse and hares, songbirds that may gather at bird feeders and small household pets like cats.

Jodi Clayton, who lives on Crosby Street in Orono, took several photos of the bobcat when it visited her home repeatedly.

“The bobcat showed up in our yard [Feb. 19] — at least that’s the first time my husband saw it,” Clayton said in an email. “It was dusk and the bobcat was drawn in by our chicken coop. The coop also attracts other critters such as small rodents and birds (because of the feed), which may have also interested the bobcat.”

Clayton said the chickens — “the girls” — are safe becauses the coop is well-constructed. The bobcat retreated when her husband was nearby, but returned to the coop several times.

“The following morning, it was hunkered down in the snow, about eight inches away from the coop, just waiting,” she said.

The photos that she captured were taken the next day, when the bobcat walked by her porch, saw her standing inside the door and meandered off.

“We know that this (or possibly another) bobcat was a block away or so on Friday and killed a neighbor’s cat,” she said. “I do not know what else it may have caught, but another neighbor saw it in their woodshed and on their back step, grooming.”

Kim Giles, whose parents live on North Main Avenue, said she saw the bobcat walking on the sidewalk near Webster Park on Monday.

Fahey said a local animal damage control trapper has set a live trap and hopes to catch the bobcat so that it can be moved to another location away from town.

That is proving to be harder than expected, he said.

“A trap has been set, and the [bobcat] tripped it,” Fahey said. “It was a small trap and a big cat.”

A larger trap is now being used, but Fahey fears that someone in the neighborhood might be feeding the bobcat, making it less apt to seek food in a trap.

“If anybody was feeding it, we’d ask that they not do that, because we are trying to trap and relocate it, and it’s easier to capture if it’s hungry, not if it’s being fed by a neighbor,” Fahey said.

Fahey stressed that the bobcat isn’t doing anything wrong — it’s just hungry. And he said keeping pet cats indoors is always a good idea.

“A [house] cat on the loose is quite a hunter in its own right,” Fahey said. “[It hunts] not only rodents, but also game animals like grouse, and songbirds. Responsible pet ownership has some level of responsibility.”

Fahey said the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries, by policy, does not trap and relocate wild animals, but in some cases, decisions are made to intervene.

Last year, for instance, efforts were made to trap and relocate black bears that were wandering around the town of Orono. Those bears had been fed by homeowners and began associating houses with human food. And a few years back, during another cold spell, he said he captured and relocated a bobcat in downtown Bangor’s Penobscot Plaza after it was found lounging on a windowsill outside of a jewelry store.

“These hungry bobcats, you can’t fault them for hanging around if they’re starving,” Fahey said.

If you are having trouble with a wild animal, game wardens can be reached by calling the nearest dispatch center: 1-800-228-0857 (Gray), 1-800-452-4664 (Augusta), 1-800-432-7381 (Bangor), or 1-800-924-2261 (Houlton).

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Centuries before Memes, there were the LOL #Cats of Japanese Woodprints

The Huffington Post  |  By Katherine Brooks

Posted: 02/26/2015 

 

Before the age of memedom -- before LOLcats and Lil Bub and Grumpy Cat and Henri, le Chat Noir -- there was ukiyo-e.

Typically, we associate the centuries-old Japanese art form with wood print masters like Katsushika Hokusai and Hishikawa Moronobu, who rendered everything from "Great Waves" to Edo-era erotica. But, as a recent exhibition has graciously pointed out, cats played a surprisingly prominent role in the work of Japan's illustrators in the 17th century on. Behold: "Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection."

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), Cats Suggested by the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1847. Color woodblock print; each sheet 14 5/8 x 10 inches. Courtesy Private Collection, New York.
The upcoming show, on view at the Japan Society Gallery in New York, will showcase 90 little-known prints that place cats, cats and more cats at the center of their frames. The survey begins with "The Tale of Genji" by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, an early 11th century print considered to be the longest-lasting image of a cat in Japanese literature. From there, the exhibition moves to the crux of the Edo period -- the 1600s to the 1800s -- to capture the ways in which artists anthropomorphized felines in domestic and exotic scenes, proving a fascination with the more devious species of household pets has origins in the pre(pre-pre-pre)-internet days.

Miwako Tezuka, director of the Japan Society Gallery, hand-picked the works in "Life of Cats," no doubt capitalizing on the digital age's preoccupation with watching cats play keyboards. While on the surface, the show is a cheeky way of penetrating mainstream audiences, goading the less fanatic of art admirers into a gallery space with the promise of truly vintage whiskers, the works give a glimpse into a real art world treasure: the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection, based in Tokyo. We can't fault them for that.

The exhibition includes five categories: cats and people, cats as people, cats versus people... you get the gist. (The last two are "Cats Transformed" and "Cats and Play.") A press release for the show boasts a historical perspective on the ways in which our Japanese ancestors interacted with cats on a daily basis, either mimicking their ways in kabuki theater or channeling cat-related activities into their erotic fantasies. Some visions are more mundane, with cats lounging, provoking play time, gazing out windows. Life as seen through Ukiyo-e is, maybe, not so removed from today.
" Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection" will be on view at Japan Society Gallery from Friday, March 13 to Sunday, June 7, 2015.

Utagawa Kunisada II (1823–1880), Kashiwagi from the series The False Murasaki's Rustic Genji, 1848–54. Color woodblock print; 22 3/8 x 36 7/8 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), Asakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi Festival from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1857. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Yoshiiku (1833–1904), The Story of Otomi and Yosaburō, 1860. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892), The Enlightenment of Daruma from an untitled series known as Sketches by Yoshitoshi, 1882. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1864), Cat and Beauty from the series Beauties in New Styles Dyed to Order, 1818–30. Color woodblock print; 36 7/8 x 22 3/8 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kunimaro (active ca. 1850-75), A Brief History of the Buddha Dainichi Disguised as Otake, 1849. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Yoshifuji (1828–1887), Popular Hotspring Spa [of Cats], 1880. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892), Looking Tiresome: The Appearance of a Virgin of the Kansei Era from the series Thirty-two Aspects of Customs and Manners, 1888. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kunisada II (1823–1880), No. 36, Kashiwagi from the series Lady Murasaki's Genji Cards, 1857. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1864), The Actor Onoe Kikugorō III as Kayanoya Kanpei, 1833. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892), Sixth Month: Fukusuke of Shinbashi with Morning Glories at Iriya from the series of Pride of Tokyo’s Twelve Months, 1880. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Yoshifuji (1828 – 1887), Newly Published Applications for Cats, ca. 1868–1912. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy of Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), Chrysanthemums from the series Eight Selected Flowers from the Garden, 1844–48. Color woodblock print, 16 x 22 ½ inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), Parody of Umegae Striking the Bell of Limitless [Hell] from the series Fashionable Cat Games, 1848–54. Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III; 1786–1865), Beloved Concubine Kochō, Her Maid Okoma, and Narushima Tairyō, 1853. Color woodblock print; 22 3/8 x 36 7/8 inches. Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.

Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889), A True Picture of the Fierce Live Tiger Never Seen from the Past to the Present, 1860. Color woodblock print; 14 x 9 ¾ inches. Courtesy Ronin Gallery, New York.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), Cats Suggested by the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1847. Color woodblock print; each sheet 14 5/8 x 10 inches. Courtesy Private Collection, New York.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), Cats Suggested by the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1847. Color woodblock print; each sheet 14 5/8 x 10 inches. Courtesy Private Collection, New York.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), Cats Suggested by the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, 1847. Color woodblock print; each sheet 14 5/8 x 10 inches. Courtesy Private Collection, New York.

 

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#Sauerkraut is Internet's new favorite cranky #cat

Grumpy Cat may have a new rival for online feline supremacy. Sauerkraut has a neurological disorder 

that makes her appear like she is constantly bummed. Still, the rescue cat actually seems to be pretty 

 happy and healthy nowadays. Saurkraut's owner,

Alexandra Martellaro, KSDK  

February 25, 2015

 (KSDK) It's no secret people on the Internet love few things more than cats, and in this age of social media, few cats rise to superstar status.

Tarder Sauce, a.k.a. "Grumpy Cat," no longer has a monopoly of the unfriendly feline market in cyber space. The internet has a new cranky kitty, and her name is Sauerkraut.

Sauerkraut's owners say she has a permanent frown because she has a neurological disorder, but she's actually a quite happy and healthy cat.

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Instagram | @thesauerkrautkitty

This is an A and B conversation. C yourself out. #KrautAndPopsClub #sauerkraut #catsofNOPE #weeklyfluff #catsofinstagram

Sauerkraut Kitty @SauerkrautKitty

The Pagoda of Solitude. In it, I dream of conquering the world. #catnap

22 Jan 2014

 

Instagram | @thesauerkrautkitty

You had me at 'Meat Tornado'. #RonSwanson #sauerkraut #catsofNOPE #catsrequest #catsofinstagram #weeklyfluff

Vet offers tips to stop #cats from scratching furniture

By Joan Morris

Posted:   02/26/2015 

 

DEAR JOAN: Although most of the suggestions you made are good, please pass on a few additional tips to your readers to help train and prevent cats from scratching on furniture.

Just like in real estate, it's all about location, location, location. One of the reasons cats scratch is to mark their territory, but often times, cat owners want that ugly scratching post or box hidden away in the corner of the room, while the cats want to mark more prominent areas such as that corner of the couch that everyone can see.

So put the scratching posts where the cat wants to scratch, at least in the beginning, and then very gradually move them to a less objectionable area in the room.

A good scratching post in the right spot can keep your cats from destroying your furniture. (Craig Kohlruss/Fresno Bee)

 

Texture matters. As was mentioned in an earlier post, different cats may prefer different types of scratching posts, and they need to be sturdy enough and heavy enough to not tip over. In general, the sisal rope-wrapped types are usually more attractive to cats than carpet-wrapped posts.

I've also had very good luck with the corrugated cardboard scratching pads, particularly the ones shaped like a ramp that allow your kitty to stretch up and out, just as if they were scratching on a log or tree in the wild. More is better. Use several scratching posts or pads in different locations in a room and in different rooms in the house. And just like litter boxes, more cats require more scratching posts.

If you're at the point of buying new furniture, get the cats trained to use their new scratching posts and pads first. When you do buy new furniture, go for smooth textured fabrics. Coarser weaves are much more attractive for scratching, and you are just asking for trouble. My old rough-textured sofa was clawed down to the wood frame, but the current sofa and chairs are over a decade old and have no scratches whatsoever.

Using a squirt bottle probably isn't that effective. Punishment needs to be consistent, and most folks aren't around enough or able to catch their cats in the act every time. It's better to give cats the right scratching post, in the right place, to accommodate their natural behavior. Hope this will help readers save their furniture, and their cats.

Dr. Renee, retired veterinarian

Bay Area

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Your Daily #Cats

 

Kalika sitting with open mouth by Tambako The Jaguar

Two lionesses by Tambako The Jaguar

Car service turns into animal haven, helps sterilize feral #cats

By Rebecca Harshbarger

February 25, 2015 

A cat at the facility.Photo: Ferals in Peril

A Brooklyn car service owner is using her spare space to help control the pet population — with on-site vets that have spayed and neutered thousands of cats.

Big Apple Car in Bath Beach, which dispatches 225 luxury car drivers to jobs around the city, has a surgery room on its first floor where the doctors sterilize kitties for free on Sundays and Mondays.
The operation would normally run several hundred dollars at a veterinarian. The vets are paid by the nonprofit The Toby project.

The base also has about 20 frisky cats up for adoption in a sanctuary created in its basement by the nonprofit Ferals in Peril.
The group rescues the cats largely in the Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Bay Ridge sections of Brooklyn.
It doesn’t run an animal shelter, but uses the car base space as a temporary home for kitties that are neutered or spayed while it finds homes for them.

Big Apple Car’s president Diana Clemente adores cats and offered the animal rescue group the space to spay and neuter cats in 2011, as well as to provide sanctuary for them.
The animal lover began working in the black car industry as a teenager, working first as a telephone operator when she was sixteen.

She is a volunteer with the Hampton’s Animal Rescue Fund.
“I go down there on my break and play with them,” said Big Apple manager Marie Franc.
“It is unusual, but I think of it like this– anyone who can help an animal should have a special place in Heaven.”
Since the car service turned into an animal haven, over 9,000 cats have been spayed and neutered at the base.

Some of their staff have fallen in love with the cats and adopted them as well.
“I commend Ms. Clemente for her compassionate work on this very necessary cause,” said Nora Constance Marino, who serves on the TLC’s board of commissioners. “As a longtime animal rights advocate, and a former volunteer in the City’s animal shelter, I’ve seen firsthand the unnecessary euthanasia of cats. We need more in our communities to do what Ms. Clemente so selflessly is doing.”

The head of the TLC also gave the base accolades.
“Our licensees are an integral part of the communities they serve,” said Commissioner Meera Joshi. “And Big Apple’s commitment to this compassionate work really shows the depth of their caring and professionalism.”

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Ernie Chambers reloads to stop big #cat hunters

By Joe Jordan  /   February 26, 2015
Nebraska Watchdog

With his critics no doubt ready to pounce, State Sen. Ernie Chambers brings his mountain lion defense act back to the halls of the Nebraska State Capitol (today) Thursday.

Courtesy Nebraska Game and Parks Commission For the second time in two years State. Sen. Ernie Chambers is urging his fellow lawmakers to outlaw mountain lion hunting in Nebraska

Chambers wants to outlaw the hunting of big cats. Approved in 2012, the first legal hunts were held last year.

According to Chambers, studies indicate 12 of the 22 “great cats” reported in Nebraska’s Pine Ridge were killed in 2014, along with four in the rest of the state. He says those kinds of numbers—16 deaths in all— “cannot be sustained without exterminating” the animals.

Chambers, who represents a violence-torn district on Omaha’s near north side, has been accused by some of his harshest detractors of caring more for the pumas than his own gang-plagued constituents.

Game and Parks Commission

Confirmed mountain lion sightings in Nebraska since 1991.

The Legislature’s longest-serving senator’s first attempt to save mountain lions made it all the way to then-Gov. Dave Heineman’s desk last year but was vetoed. “Nebraskans expect responsible wildlife management. (Chambers’ bill) eliminates an important tool used to accomplish it,” said Heineman.
There have been dozens of big cat sightings in the state dating back to 1991, when they made their first appearance in Nebraska in over a hundred years, according to the Game and Parks Commission website.

There are no big cat hunts allowed this year. There was a report of an unconfirmed sighting in south Omaha on Tuesday.

Chambers says there have been no confirmed attacks on humans in Nebraska during the last 24 years.
A public hearing on Chambers’ bill (LB127) is scheduled for 1:30 before the Natural Resources Committee.

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U.S. 'Pet' #Tiger Trade Puts Big #Cats at Great Risk

Nicole Paquette, The Humane Society of the United States   |   February 25, 2015

Sumatran Tiger. Credit: © Iorboaz, dreamstime

Nicole Paquette is the vice president of wildlife protection at The Humane Society of the United States. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Threatened with extinction in the wild, tigers are struggling to survive and regain their once-thriving populations against pressures caused by habitat loss, poaching and conflicts with an ever-increasing human population. Their numbers are estimated to be in the low thousands.

On the other hand, tigers in captivity face a different set of problems. They are bred repeatedly and forced to produce litter after litter — so many litters that there are now far too many tigers in the United States, and not enough responsible and experienced facilities to care for them.

Tiger overpopulation?

One of the main causes of tiger overpopulation in the United States is some facilities use tiger cubs for public handling. For a fee, members of the public can play with, bottle-feed, swim with or have their photo taken holding a tiger cub. Tiger cubs are typically handled by the public until they are only three to four months old, then they are discarded and a new batch of tiger cubs are brought in for the next few months of public handling and the cycle of breeding and dumping continues.

The HSUS has documented facilities that offer photo ops with tiger, lion or bear cubs sending the older, unwanted animals to roadside zoos with histories of violating the federal Animal Welfare Act, and, in the case of African lions and bears, sending them to facilities where they are slaughtered for their meat.

No one knows where all these unwanted tigers end up because they are not tracked by the federal government. A good many end up warehoused in substandard roadside zoos. And some are portrayed as "rescued" animals by phony sanctuaries in order to convince caring people to give them money. Those pseudo-sanctuaries are not accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries and lack the knowledge, facilities, and resources to provide long-term humane, safe, and appropriate care for complex species, such as tigers.

Tigers are not pets

Other tigers end up in the pet trade. Some tiger cub operators actually place "free to a good home" classified ads for their older, unwanted tiger cubs. Some tigers may be killed illegally and their body parts sold on the black market. Investigators with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service uncovered a group of individuals and small business owners in the Midwest that bought and killed tigers and other exotic animal species with the intention of selling the meat, skins, bones and organs into the lucrative trade in animal parts. A total of 17 defendants in seven states were charged and convicted as a result of the investigation. A tiger is actually worth more dead than alive.

Very few of the beautiful and majestic big cats will be lucky enough to end up at reputable, properly run sanctuaries. Besides causing a "homeless tiger" problem in the United States, facilities that offer photo ops with tiger cubs cause a great deal of harm to the cubs, as well as their mothers. Like puppy mills, tigers are bred more often than they should be. Undercover investigations and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) documents confirm that during or shortly after birth, tiger cubs at most unaccredited zoos are taken from their mother to be hand-raised, which is very upsetting to the fiercely-protective mother and deprives the cubs of maternal care that is vital to their long-term health and development.

Professionals with zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums recommend that mother tigers be allowed to raise their cubs because the mothers will do a better job and parent-reared cubs are usually better adjusted behaviorally. Additionally, the USDA's big cat specialist has found that privately-owned, hand-reared tigers appear to have the highest incidence of metabolic bone disease which is the result of cubs being fed a nutritionally-deficient diet.

Investigating "photo ops"

The HSUS recently conducted investigations at two facilities that offer photo ops with tiger cubs. Public handling began at about three weeks of age, when it was unsafe for the cubs, and lasted until it was unsafe for the public, when the cubs were more than 17 weeks old and weighed about 50 pounds.
Of great concern was the constant stress that public handling caused the tiger cubs. Their schedules revolved around photo ops, so they were denied proper food and rest, as well as adequate veterinary care. Cubs who were sick, exhausted or screaming from hunger were still required to sit still for a parade of customers wanting a photo op with a tiger cub.

A petition filed by a coalition of organizations, including The HSUS, to put an end to this practice is pending with the USDA. In the meantime, steer clear of any place that advertises photos with tiger cubs. Not only are these places not helping wild tigers, they are causing great harm to those in captivity by denying them maternal care, exposing them to stressful public handling, and contributing to the problem of surplus tigers.

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Humane Society member: Bill dealing with exotic pets merits approval

BY KELLY PLACE • Published: February 25, 2015

Keeping exotic animals as pets has had devastating and heartbreaking results.
In 2009 in Connecticut, Charla Nash went to assist her neighbor when her 200-pound pet chimpanzee escaped. The chimp attacked Nash. She lost her hands and face — including her nose, eyes, lips and cheekbones — along with suffering significant brain trauma.

                                                                                            Kelly Place

This was a preventable tragedy. Connecticut moved swiftly to enact legislation restricting the private possession of exotic animals. It’s time for Oklahoma to do the same.

Senate Bill 776, by Sen. Randy Bass, D-Lawton, would place restrictions on the ownership, sale and breeding of big cats, bears and nonhuman primates. To be clear: Institutions such as accredited zoos, circuses and wildlife sanctuaries won’t be affected by this legislation; only individuals without the capacity or facilities to care for such dangerous animals. Additionally, people who already own exotic pets will be allowed to keep their animals, as long as they meet certain requirements. The bill also prohibits public contact with dangerous wild animals, a common sense safety precaution.

Keeping wild animals as pets poses serious public safety risks. Their wild instincts make them dangerous. They’re incapable of being tamed. Since 1990, there have been 250 recorded injuries to humans by primates, 54 by big cats and 11 by bears. These numbers are understated, as most incidents go unreported. Furthermore, many animals are carriers of diseases that are communicable — and potentially fatal — to humans. There is no reason such dangerous and unpredictable animals should be allowed to reside in a residential setting.

Additionally, private ownership of wild animals puts undue stress on law enforcement. When an exotic pet becomes a safety hazard to the owners or members of the public, it’s police officers who respond. Law enforcement officials routinely place their lives on the line to contain animals that don’t belong in a home in the first place.

And then what? Born Free USA operates a primate sanctuary in Texas that’s home to 630 primates, many of which were abandoned by or confiscated from private homes. The keepers see the scars — both physical and mental — that these animals bear from their isolated, abusive captivity. While the mission of these facilities is to provide humane lifetime care to needy animals, there is only so much they can do; nearly every sanctuary is at capacity.

As long as dangerous wild animals are kept as pets, it’s only a matter of time before there is another Charla Nash. She is a tragic and unequivocal testament to the fact that wild animals belong in the wild — not in someone’s home. Legislators should pass SB 776 and set an example for states that don’t yet have the protections that such a law would provide.

Place, of Marlow, is a member of the board of directors for the Stephens County Humane Society.

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Rarest Big #Cat on Earth Starting to Make a Comeback

by Elizabeth Palermo, Staff Writer   |   February 23, 2015

An Amur leopard is caught on camera at Land of the Leopard National Park in RussiaCredit: WWF


Things are starting to look up for the rarest big cat on the planet: The critically endangered Amur leopard, which is indigenous to southeastern Russia and parts of northeastern China, has doubled in population since 2007, according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Census data from Russia's Land of the Leopard National Park, which covers about 60 percent of the Amur leopard's habitat, puts the number of these wild cats at 57. That's up from the 30 leopards counted in the area in 2007, according to the WWF.

Eight to 12 additional cats were also counted in adjacent areas of China during the census, which means the total population of Amur leopards has, in fact, doubled in less than a decade.


"Such a strong rebound in Amur leopard numbers is further proof that even the most critically endangered big cats can recover if we protect their habitat and work together on conservation efforts," Barney Long, director of species protection and Asian species conservation for WWF, said in a statement. "There's still a lot of work to be done in order to secure a safe future for the Amur leopard, but these numbers demonstrate that things are moving in the right direction."

To count these solitary cats, park rangers and experts from the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences placed camera traps throughout the more than 1,400 square miles (3,600 square kilometers) of land that make up the Amur leopard's habitat. They collected about 10,000 photographs, which were used to identify approximately 60 individual leopards. Each animal was identified by the distinctive pattern of spots on its fur, WWF officials said.

A camera trap captured this image of two Amur leopards in a previous census of the rare cat's population in the Land of the Leopard National Park in Russia.
Credit: WWF


The Land of the Leopard National Park, where the leopards were counted, was established in 2012 along the border of northeastern China and the Russian Far East, in a region known as the Amur-Heilong River Basin. Its founding was part of an ongoing effort to conserve Amur leopards and other at-risk species, including the Siberian tiger.

Siberian tigers were once in as dire a situation as Amur leopards are now, with only about 56 of these tigers living in the wild in 2009, according to the Siberian Tiger Monitoring Program, a collaboration among the U.S. Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and several Russian organizations. Ten Siberian tigers were introduced to the Land of the Leopard National Park in 2012. Another 350 or so Siberian tigers live in other areas of the Russian Far East.But these tigers are now making inroads into northeastern China as well, according to recent video footage captured by WWF officials in that country. The footage, taken late last year inside the Wangqing Nature Reserve in northeastern China, shows a family of Siberian tigers frolicking about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Russian border.
Until this video was taken, the only evidence that Siberian tigers still inhabited parts of China was the occasional footprint, WWF officials said.



"These images show that Wangqing Nature Reserve has now become a breeding site for Amur tigers," said Wang Fuyou, division head of the Wangqing Nature Reserve conservation department. "Seeing these positive outcomes from our efforts greatly strengthens our confidence that wild Amur tiger populations can be restored."

Conservationists in Russia are now working with their counterparts in China to more closely monitor Amur leopard populations in that country as well. The next step could be to create a nature reserve that stretches across both countries, WWF officials said.

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Flawed method puts #tiger rise in doubt, calls for new approach

Date:

February 23, 2015

Source:

University of Oxford

Summary:

Flaws in a method commonly used in censuses of tigers and other rare wildlife put the accuracy of such surveys in doubt, a new study suggests. The study exposes, for the first time, inherent shortcomings in the 'index-calibration' method that means it can produce inaccurate results. Amongst recent studies thought to be based on this method is India's national tiger survey (January 2015) which claimed a surprising but welcome 

30 percent rise in tiger numbers in just four years.

Camera trap image of Tiger taken In India. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford

Flaws in a method commonly used in censuses of tigers and other rare wildlife put the accuracy of such surveys in doubt, a new study suggests.

A team of scientists from the University of Oxford, Indian Statistical Institute, and Wildlife Conservation Society exposes, for the first time, inherent shortcomings in the 'index-calibration' method that means it can produce inaccurate results. Amongst recent studies thought to be based on this method is India's national tiger survey (January 2015) which claimed a surprising but welcome 30 percent rise in tiger numbers in just four years.

The team urges conservation practitioners to guard against these sources of error, which could mislead even the best conservation efforts, and suggests a constructive way forward using alternative methods of counting rare animals that avoid the pitfalls of the index-calibration approach.

A report of the research is published this week in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Index-calibration often relies on measuring animal numbers accurately in a relatively small region using reliable, intensive and expensive methods (such as camera trapping) and then relating this measure to a more easily obtained, inexpensive indicator (such as animal track counts) by means of calibration. The calibrated-index is then used to extrapolate actual animal numbers over larger regions. 

This approach has been popular among wildlife conservation agencies to generate animal numbers at a regional and national level. These numbers are then used to inform conservation efforts and direct resources worth millions of pounds.
To investigate index-calibration the team created a mathematical model describing the approach and then tested its efficiency when different values, representing variations in data, were inputted. Under most conditions the model was shown to lose its efficiency and power to predict. The team then tested this mathematical model on a real world example: attempting to derive tiger numbers from fieldwork data. The index-calibration model was shown to be unreliable again, with any high degree of success shown to be down to chance, rather like being dealt a single incredibly 'high value' poker hand, that could not be replicated.

Arjun Gopalaswamy, lead author of the report from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University's Department of Zoology, said: 'Our study shows that index-calibration models are so fragile that even a 10 percent uncertainty in detection rates severely compromises what we can reliably infer from them. Our empirical test with data from Indian tiger survey efforts proved that such calibrations yield irreproducible and inaccurate results.'

Arjun added: 'Index-calibration relies on the assumption that detection rates of animal evidence are high and unvarying. In reality this is nearly impossible to achieve. Instead, there are many flexible approaches, developed over the past decade by statistical ecologists, which can cut through noisy 'real world' data to make accurate predictions.'

Dr Ullas Karanth, a co-author from the Wildlife Conservation Society, and a member of India's National Tiger Conservation Authority, said: 'This study exposes fundamental statistical weaknesses in the sampling, calibration and extrapolations that are at the core of methodology used by the Government to estimate India's numbers, thus undermining their reliability. We are not at all disputing that tigers numbers have increased in many locations in India in last 8 years, but the method employed to measure this increase is not sufficiently robust or accurate to measure changes at regional and country wide levels.'
Professor Mohan Delampady, a co-author from the Indian Statistical Institute, said: 'The findings have wider consequences for several applied sciences where sampling and direct extrapolation is involved, especially when sampling errors are influenced by unknown detection probabilities.'

Professor David Macdonald, a co-author and the founding Director of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University's Department of Zoology, said: 'This is a breakthrough which will dramatically change how we count wildlife numbers in the future.' He added: 'Index-calibration can work well, if the correlations are tight and consistent, but often they aren't, and many of us, myself included, for example in the context of estimating numbers of mink and water voles in the UK, have been using the technique without appreciating its risks. Our intention is to help conservationists by highlighting the conditions when index calibration can be misleading. Everybody will benefit from greater accuracy when it comes to counting rare animals.'

The team say that the aim of the study is to help ecologists and conservationists to address the global challenge of counting rare and elusive animals. The good news is that the mathematical model created by the team provides the crucial 'link' between some of the older methods (which don't estimate detection rates) with some of the newer methods (which do estimate detection rates). The findings will help in the reanalysis of raw data from wildlife research. The study also recommends that estimates from future surveys will be most reliable if designed, a priori, keeping in mind the power of modern, robust, modelling approaches.

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Oxford. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Arjun M. Gopalaswamy, Mohan Delampady, K. Ullas Karanth, N. Samba Kumar, David W. Macdonald. An examination of index-calibration experiments: counting tigers at macroecological scales. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2015; DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12351

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Cite This Page:

University of Oxford. "Flawed method puts tiger rise in doubt, calls for new approach." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 February 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150223104135.htm>.

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Quite serious cheetah cub! by Tambako The Jaguar

World's Rarest #Cat Doubles in Population Size

Feb 23, 2015

by Jennifer Viegas

The world’s rarest cat, the Amur leopard, is increasing in number, according to new census data that found there are now 65 to 69 of these big cats in the wild versus 30 reported in 2007.

The increase, which doubles the Amur leopard’s known population, shows that conservation efforts in Russia and China — where the animals live — are working. “Such a strong rebound in Amur leopard numbers is further proof that even the most critically endangered big cats can recover if we protect their habitat and work together on conservation efforts,” Barney Long, who leads Asian species conservation for World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the U.S., said in a press release.

He added, “There’s still a lot of work to be done in order to secure a safe future for the Amur leopard, but these numbers demonstrate that things are moving in the right direction.”

Staff at Russia’s Land of the Leopard National Park conducted the census, which also involved the work of researchers at the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, The Amur Leopard Center and WWF-Russia.

The survey found that 57 of the leopards are in the Land of the Leopard National Park, while an additional 8 to 12 leopards live in adjacent areas of China. The park, which was established in 2012, extends across nearly 650,000 acres and includes all of the leopard’s known breeding areas. “The national park became the main organizational force for leopard protection and research,” said Yury Darman, who is head of WWF Russia’s Amur Branch and a member of the Supervisory Board of The Amur Leopards Center.
 
The good news about Amur leopards comes on the heels of the first video evidence of wild Amur tigers in China. This footage, captured by a camera trap and released by the WWF, was taken almost 20 miles from the Russian border late last year. In the past, tiger footprints were the only indicators of Amur tigers in China.

Darman and colleagues next hope to establish a nature reserve that would cover the big cats’ territory in both China and Russia. It would be a challenge, requiring the support of both countries, but could lead to even more progress in the fight to save these majestic animals.

Photo: An Amur leopard. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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