Wait a second, this last jaguar cub looks kinda familiar…
Wordless Wednesday: Baby Jaguar Cub Club!
Who wants to see cute baby jaguars?
Author: thebigbuddy
UK Pol Resigns After He Was Filmed Trying To Kill Cat With Explosives
The cat survived but her personality has radically changed from loving and affectionate to distant and wary, her human said.
A councilman in a rural UK village resigned from his post and is the subject of renewed police scrutiny after allegedly trying to blow up a neighbor’s cat twice in 2023.
Councillor James Garnor was reportedly trying to stop the cat from climbing into a bird feeder, and decided the best way to do it was to rig the feeder with explosives and lure the curious feline in, according to a report on UK broadcaster LBC’s website.
Garnor was apparently so amused by his handiwork that he distributed video of the incidents to his friends. The footage shows a cat named Suki leaping onto the bird feeder on April 9, 2023, and nibbling on some of the bird feed before the explosive detonated. An injured Suki took off immediately and ran home.
She “came home one day missing her whiskers on her face – they looked like they’d been dissolved – so I put a post in my local community page on Facebook… just to warn people in case there was something she’d rolled in that had dissolved them,” said Suki’s human, a woman named Nikki.
“But somebody contacted me to tell me it wasn’t what I thought it was, that somebody had actually blown my cat up – and that it was my neighbour and local councillor. It made me feel physically sick.”
After she received the video, Nikki filed a complaint with local police, who elected not to arrest Garnor. However, after a second video surfaced with a clearer view of Garnor’s alleged actions, police responded to the public outcry and said they were reviewing the case again.
Per LBC, which broke the story:
“The incident is one of at least two occasions that cats in Whittlebury, Northamptonshire, were allegedly targeted by Councillor James Garnor in 2023 using remote-detonated explosives.”
It’s not clear if the new video shows a second attempt, or a different angle on the first. Garnor “was dealt with using anti-social behavior legislation,” a type of civil admonishment usually associated with things like noise complaints, littering and damaging public property, not trying to kill an animal.
Garnor resigned from his post on Feb. 7, and the council distanced itself from him, saying its members “understand the concerns raised by the community and want to assure everyone that we take all matters of animal welfare seriously.”
That hasn’t mollified people living in the small community, who are wondering why police didn’t press charges the first time they were presented with evidence of the attempt on Suki’s life.
“You can clearly see the videos have been slowed down [and] edited. It’s very set-up: the animal has been enticed on the bird table with food whilst said individual was sitting there with the detonator waiting for [the cat] to appear,” a neighbor told LBC. “He is a member of our parish council, so it makes you worry what decisions are being made there by the individual… he has offered no apology [and] shown no remorse.”
In the meantime, Suki has been permanently impacted by the incidents. The tabby was affectionate and friendly, Nikki said, wrapping her little body “like a scarf around your neck.”
“Now she very rarely comes near you, and if she does, she’s got her claws out – she hisses, she growls,” Nikki added. “She’s not the loving cat she used to be – and I don’t blame her… the change in her happened pretty much overnight.”
Cats Listed On Google Maps Are Getting Showered With Treats By Enamored Visitors. Buddy Wants In!
Some friendly felines boast five-star ratings in their listings, beating out top restaurants, hotels and nightclubs for highest-rated tourist attractions in their cities.
People have been listing their cats as tourist attractions on Google Maps, drawing five-star reviews from feline fans who come bearing snacks.
Titan the orange tabby, an absolute unit of a chonky cat who lives in Athens and is regularly fed by admirers, as well as “friendly neighborhood cats” in cities like Sydney, Australia, are earning ratings that most restaurateurs would envy.
“Visitors are evaluating a cat’s overall behaviour: enthusiastic purring, chonkiness, politeness and general adorability,” a story in The Guardian notes.
Titan, who likes to hang out in the ruins of the Acropolis, is the venerated subject of hundreds of glowing reviews on Google Maps.
“If there was a king in Athens, it would be him,” one reviewer declared, while another was laconic but no less enthralled: “HE IS GLORIOUS!”
In Sydney, where listing affable cats has become a trend, a moggie simply known as “friendly orange cat” had 117 reviews and a 4.9 rating before someone, presumably the cat’s caretaker, removed the listing.
Perhaps they were concerned F.O.C. was in danger of becoming the next Gacek, a famous chonkster in Poland who was the highest-rated tourist attraction in Szczecin, a city of almost 400,000.
Gacek had his own little house on the street complete with a bed, blankets, a spot where admirers could leave treats, and a note asking them to hold off on feeding him directly because he was gaining too much weight.
While Gacek’s popularity never waned, and in fact increased with each new press story or Youtube video about him, his humans made him an indoor-only cat after too many people ignored their pleas not to feed him. There were also a handful of incidents involving people who tried to take him, which was another factor in the decision to move him inside. It’s a reminder that there are dangers that come with publicly listing cats.
That said, Buddy is enamored with this idea. He envisions a Google Maps listing headlined: “MAGNIFICENT Cat In New York!” and a court of sorts where he can lounge on a gilded throne with red velvet cushions while “supplicants” line up to pay tribute to him in Tempations and Sheba Meaty Sticks.
“Your Grace, it is my life’s honor to greet your esteemed personage and to tell you that I have always been…”
“Yes, yes! What are those, crunchies? Leave them at the base of the steps to my dais and move along, there’s a whole crowd of people here who want to lavish snacks on me. Did anyone here bring any of those soft Blue turkey treats? Well, step forward! Lay ’em on me!”
It really is his dream: to get attention and an endless supply of snacks without having to actually do anything. He could spend the entire day lounging and napping, and people will simply bring him food and give him head scratches when he wants them.
Although, now that I think about it, I’m not sure how that’s really different than the arrangement he has now.
Header image credit: Hasan Albari/Pexels
You’re No One Without A Pet Tiger: How The Gulf’s Rich Kids Show Off
Cheetahs are on the precipice of extinction because of relentless poaching on behalf of the children of oligarchs, and showing off collections of rare big cats has become de rigueur on social media.
Imagine you’re an obscenely wealthy Emirati heir, a Saudi prince, or the scion of a global business empire in Dubai.
You started an Instagram account, but sadly photos of your Lamborghinis and McLarens aren’t really moving the needle. In the circles you run in, everyone has those. Likewise, your $20 million digs are pedestrian by the standards of Gulf opulence, and showing off private jets is so 2023.
You need something to stand out, to show the peasants that you’re not just a fabulously affluent heir, you’re also really cool and everyone should envy you.
You need a big cat.
Maybe even cats, plural, if you can’t swing an ultra rare white lion or an 850lb liger on the illegal wildlife market.
Just imagine your follower count blowing up, and how jealous the peasantry will be when you post images of your apex predator pet chillin’ in the passenger seat of your Sesto Elemento, with a pair of $20,000 sunglasses on his head for the lulz.
That’s what’s currently happening in the Gulf among the incredibly well-off children of royalty, aristocrats, oil oligarchs, shipping magnates and other bigwigs, a report in Semafor notes.
In addition to providing compelling ‘tent to their social feeds in the form of photos and videos, it’s clear the owners believe big cats offer a kind of osmotic badassery: if you have your very own lion, you must be a powerful and interesting person!
This kind of thing is not new. Years ago there was a brief outcry when wildlife groups begged authorities to protect cheetahs, who are already critically endangered and risk extinction if global elites are allowed to continue to poach them and their cubs from the wild.
As CNN noted at the time:
“While many of these states – including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – ban the private ownership and sale of wild animals, enforcement is lax.
The overwhelming majority of these cheetahs end up in Gulf Arab mansions, where Africa’s most endangered big cats are flaunted as status symbols of the ultra-rich and paraded around in social media posts, according to CCF and trafficking specialists.”…
The trend is of “epidemic proportions,” according to CCF, an organization devoted to saving cheetahs in the wild. At the current rates of trafficking, the cheetah population in the region could soon be wiped out.
“If you do the math, the math kind of shows that it’s only going to be a matter of a couple of years [before] we are not going to have any cheetahs,” said Laurie Marker, an American conservation biologist biologist and founder of CCF.
Youtube has its share of dauphins showing off cats and cars, and Instagram has an entire sub-genre of pages featuring men in pristine white robes posing in million-dollar hyper cars next to cheetah cubs or tigers who have been sedated to their eyeballs.
As the Semafor report explains, technically keeping big cats is illegal in most Gulf states, except for the super rich. They can skirt existing wildlife laws by getting permits as private “zoo” and “sanctuary” operators, and who’s to say a good zookeeper can’t keep his jaguars in an enclosure with Maseratis and Aston Martins?
One guy even runs a place called Fame Park, a private zoo. The only way to get in is if he deems you famous enough, and thus worthy, to gaze upon his wondrous menagerie of endangered beasts.
The park’s motto is “Where luxury meets wildlife wonder,” and its operator styles himself as a conservationist who just happens to enjoy rubbing elbows with esteemed figures like Andrew Tate and Steven Seagal.
Things really haven’t changed much in the last few hundred years, have they? One way royals and aristocrats amused themselves was by sending explorers to far off lands and instructing them to bring back strange animals.
That’s how elephants ended up in the courts of European kings, and how Hanno the Navigator found himself in mortal danger when he tried to capture gorillas, then decided they were “too violent” to drag back home and had them executed.
These days, the centers of power have shifted, but human behavior has not. Part of me still has hope, but the cynic in me fears people with the means to exploit rare and endangered animals will continue to do so until there are no more animals left to exploit.
Palmerston The Cat Accepts Post In Bermuda, Will Plot World Domination From Tropical Paradise
Palmerston is the former chief mouser at the UK’s foreign office, and is infamous for his numerous clashes with No. 10 Downing Street’s chief mouser, Larry the Cat.
Palmerston is back!
In 2020, after years of internecine conflict between mousers in service to Queen Elizabeth II, Foreign Office Chief Mouser Palmerston “retired” to the countryside where he could enjoy nature, and most importantly, get away from archrival Larry the Cat.
Larry, a favorite of the British press in his role as chief mouser at No. 10 Downing St. (the UK equivalent of the White House), was aggressive about defending his territory. Brawls between Larry and Palmerston became the stuff of legend as media photographers documented the frequent clashes between the felines.
Now Palmerston has returned to serving his country, and his reward is a cushy gig in an island paradise.
The famous tuxedo is accompanying his human, Andrew Murdoch, who has been named governor of the British overseas territory.
Palmerston, in his role as “first feline diplomat” will “attend only the meetings he deems important, offering advice when necessary and indulging in well-earned naps,” per the BBC.
Palmerston should be having the time of his life, provided Larry doesn’t suddenly resign his post at Downing Street to take a job in Bermuda.
Pain In The Bud 