Want to dissuade criminals from targeting your home but can’t afford a fancy security system? A warning sign featuring Buddy’s terrifying visage will do!
Times are tough, everyone’s feeling the squeeze, and criminals are more motivated than ever to target homes that may have valuables in them.
That’s why Buddy, in the spirit of altruism (and the guarantee of extra turkey) agreed to lend his fierce likeness to the below poster. According to the Buddinese Center For Criminal Justice, homeowners who display this “BEWARE OF CAT” sign are 99% less likely to be the victims of home robbery or burglary, as criminals will simply move on to a home that isn’t protected by an intimidating, extremely ripped feline:
Alternate version with even more intimidating image of feline protector:
Photographer Angel Hidalgo thought the color was a trail camera malfunction until he saw the incredible feline for himself.
For the first time in history, a white Iberian lynx has been photographed.
A Spanish man who works in a factory by day and photographs wildlife as a hobby was behind the camera for the unprecedented shots.
It wasn’t easy.
Angel Hidalgo told National Geographic that first spotted fleeting images of the extraordinarily rare feline on one of his camera traps, but he was skeptical.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the 29-year-old said. “I thought it was a camera effect, and from then on, I dedicated myself to the search for the lynx. I’m still in shock.”
While hiking in late October, Hidalgo saw the “ghost cat” with his own eyes and quickly took a handful of shots and a short video before the cat vanished.
Credit: Angel Hidalgo
The Iberian lynx, as its name indicates, is native to Spain and a small range in Portugal. The cats call mountain ranges like Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo home.
The white color morph is due to leucism, not albinism: the difference is the former causes only partial loss of pigmentation, and the eyes are unaffected.
In the video footage, the cat sits calmly and regards Hidalgo for about 15 seconds before blinking and turning its head. It’s a fleeting but fascinating look at an animal that most of us will never have the opportunity to see in the flesh.
Hidalgo won’t say where he encountered the white lynx, which is a smart move in an age when bored rich kids in places like Dubai can throw money at wildlife poachers and help themselves to the rarest and most vulnerable wildlife.
Because they know the authorities in their countries won’t bother them, the sons of oil oligarchs and emirs openly flaunt their wild “pet” collections: Instagram and TikTok host thousands of photos and videos of young men and women posing with cheetahs, lions and tigers, with the cats often riding shotgun in hypercars from Lamborghini, Ferrari and McLaren.
We hope the location remains a secret for the sake of the wild cat and because the Iberian lynx is a conservation success story. The species was on the brink of extinction in the 1990s and now has a healthy breeding population that numbers in the thousands.
Studies show most of us are pretty bad at interpreting our cats’ moods. A research team in Australia wants to change that.
Cats are constantly telling us how they feel, but many of us aren’t listening.
We’re not talking about chirping, trilling and meowing, although those are some of the ways our cats try to communicate with us.
While they might seem protective of their own thoughts and feelings, cats are actually transparent, and they can’t lie.* Their tails, ears, whiskers, facial expressions and body language all broadcast a cat’s mood.
The question is, are we picking up that broadcast?
In The Conversation, the University of Adelaide’s Julia Henning introduces us to a quiz she designed to answer that question, and invites us to take it.
The goal: to correctly assess each cat’s mood. What I liked most was that we’re asked to evaluate videos — clear, well-lit high resolution clips — instead of the low resolution stills that are often used for quizzes like this.
Sir Talks-a-lot
Henning has been studying the human-cat communication issue because when we misread cats, there’s a good chance we’re stressing them out. Henning and her team published the results of a study in September in which 368 participants from Australia were asked to evaluate a series of clips human-feline interaction.
It turns out they didn’t do so well at reading the signs that a cat is agitated, stressed or doesn’t want to play.
“For videos of cats who weren’t playing and were showing subtle negative cues (such as sudden tension in the body or avoiding touch), participants only recognised the negative cues about as well as chance (48.7%),” the authors of the study wrote.
Even when study participants correctly read a cat’s ears, tail, whiskers and body language, some of them indicated they’d do things that would unknowingly make a cat more agitated and stressed. A classic example is trying to pet a cat’s belly and misinterpreting their derpy way of trying to block you as a playful gesture.
Did you know? Approximately 96% of Buddy’s communication is related to yums.
In the paper, which was published in Frontiers in Ethology, Henning and her colleagues lay out the case for making sure we — the people who take care of cats — are sensitive to what our little buddies are feeling.
It’s not just about strengthening the bond, although that’s an important part. It’s about reducing stress and miscommunication, and increasing quality of life.
Cats are incredibly sensitive to our actions and moods because we are the most important living beings in their lives. We feed and house them, and we’re their pals. If we’re constantly subjecting them to play they don’t like or overstimulating them, they get stressed, and stressed cats can become depressed, sick or resentful cats.
If we want to make sure our buddies live their best lives, we have to understand what they’re trying to tell us.
(*) Except when it comes to food. When food is involved, these innocent, cute little furry creatures become master manipulators and can convince anyone they’re starving.
Note: The first version of this story linked to the study page twice when the first link should have pointed to the quiz. It’s fixed now, and email subscribers can follow the link through this version of the story. Apologies for the error.
Today we’re admiring photos of the majestic Amur (Siberian) tiger, a species that has been pulled back from the brink of extinction thanks to the hard work of conservationists.
The Amur tiger, panthera tigris altaica, is the largest subspecies of the largest cat in the world.
Click an image in the gallery to view a higher resolution version:
All images in the gallery above via Wikimedia Commons. Header image via Pexels.
Waymo says KitKat “darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away” in the accident that killed the popular bodega cat.
Last week when we wrote about a San Francisco cat hit by an autonomous taxi, the Google subsidiary that produces the cabs hadn’t responded to media requests for comment.
Now Waymo has confirmed one of its driverless taxis did strike KitKat late on the night of Oct. 27, but claims the nine-year-old tabby got in the car’s way as it began to move. Here’s Waymo’s statement:
“The trust and the safety of the communities we serve is our highest priority. We reviewed this, and while our vehicle was stopped to pick up passengers, a nearby cat darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away. We send our deepest sympathies to the cat’s owner and the community who knew and loved him, and we will be making a donation to a local animal rights organization in his honor.”
People in the neighborhood where KitKat was a fixture are not happy with the response. Per Mission Local: “Waymo did not reply to a request to review the video, and did not say how much it would donate or what group would receive the gift.”
Mission Local noted witnesses gave slightly different accounts of the collision, saying KitKit was in front of the taxi for several seconds before it began moving.
As testament to how well-known and beloved KitKat was, there’s now a considerably sized memorial to him in front of the store he called home, with flowers, candles, drawings of KitKit and even cans of cat foot left on the spot. The San Francisco Chronicle has photos of the memorial.
KitKat featured prominently on Instagram, where photos show him hanging out with customers, patrolling the sidewalk in front of the store, and curling up for naps on the counter. Credit: https://www.instagram.com/randasmarket/
The paper also quotes a local who explained the outpouring of grief: “If you’re not a 16th Street regular this can seem silly, but this cat meant so much to this community. If you knew KitKat, you’d understand.”
KitKat’s death has soured more people on Waymo, with the Chronicle noting it “struck an emotional nerve in a neighborhood already wary of driverless cars weaving through its crowded streets.”
Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company), operates driverless fleets in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin (TX) and Atlanta, with plans to offer automated taxi service in Washington, D.C., and Miami.
“When they show up in your yard and they need you, we can’t look away.”
As someone who avoids medical dramas like the plague, I’m not familiar with Wendi McLendon-Covey’s work, but I’m sure many PITB readers will know the St. Denis Medical star. In an interview, McLendon-Covey talks about rescuing cats, earning their trust, and getting satisfaction from knowing she’s improving one life at a time.
Most recently she’s been earning trust with a stray she calls Harvey, saying it’s “taken me forever to bond with him” and she still has work to do before he trusts her enough to go indoors.
Cats, she said, are “cuddly, they’re cute, they’re hilarious. They all have their different personalities and they have their little meetings and their little way of talking to each other, and it’s just fascinating to watch. So that’s a hot Friday night for me, is just throwing treats to the cats.”
Pain In The Bud 