Video shows teacher Emily Marie Benner telling her students to hold the screaming cat down as she stapled shut an incision on its abdomen. The students then cheered for Benner, who is not a veterinarian and not licensed to teach veterinary surgery.
Regardless of whether she’s convicted, Emily Marie Benner’s career as an educator needs to end.
Benner is an agriculture teacher at Westwood High School in Palestine, Texas, about 110 miles southeast of Dallas. The 25-year-old was arrested and charged with animal cruelty over the weekend after giving students in her animal science class an unimaginably cruel “lesson” in crude unlicensed veterinary “surgery” on a living cat, local media reported.
On Aug. 23, Benner had her students hold the cat down while she stapled an incision on its abdomen shut. The procedure was performed without anesthesia and footage shows the cat was terrified and screaming. Benner is not a veterinarian, nor is she qualified to teach anything related to veterinary medicine.
After Benner administered the staple, her students began cheering, the video shows.
Local media showed a still image but said the video was too disturbing to air. Credit: CBS KYTX
It’s not clear where Benner obtained the cat or whether she made the incision to begin with. KYTX, a CBS affiliate in Texas, said it had “obtained a copy” of a video showing the incident, but declined to air it.
“The video is graphic in nature and we are choosing not to share it online or broadcast it on television,” KYTX’s Zak Wellerman wrote.
The cat is now under the care of a licensed veterinarian and is recovering, according to local media reports.
Benner. Credit: Anderson County Jail
Benner did not appear to be remorseful. In a mugshot taken after her arrest, she beams as she wears a t-shirt that reads “Teach Ag.”
In a letter to parents, Westwood Superintendent Wade Stanford said Benner’s actions amounted to animal cruelty, and said he wanted “to make it absolutely clear that our district takes such matters extremely seriously.”
“This behavior is not in line with the values and standards we uphold within our district,” Stanford wrote, “and we are committed to taking immediate and decisive action to address this issue.”
It’s not clear if Benner has retained an attorney, and a preliminary hearing for her case has not yet been scheduled. She faces a maximum sentence of two years in state prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.
Plus: The awesome and terrifying cats and proto-cats of prehistory!
OMG, you guys! No cap, you gotta totally check out this adorbz video of a sweet widdle kitty witty becoming best fwiends with this mountain lion!
Phoebe the cat sees this cute AF puma near the back door of her home, curiously looking inside. It’s love at first sight as kitty and kitty see each other! Per Parade Pets:
“[T]he kitty in this TikTok video is completely fascinated by the big kitty outside her window. There’s no getting her away from her new friend!
On Sunday, August 25, @cricketandstrawfl shared this footage of her Tuxedo Cat posted up at the back door in their house, where a cougar was hanging out. It goes without saying that the cougar in question was many times bigger than Phoebe, but that didn’t seem to scare her at all.
It seemed like the cougar was pretty curious, too. He didn’t appear to be aggressive; instead, he was staring at Phoebe and gently pawing at the glass, trying to figure out who the tiny cat in the window was.”
OMG-hee! Look at the big kitty gently pawing at the door! He wants to give the little kitty a huggy-wuggy!
SO ADORBZ! The puma pawing at the door wasn’t testing its strength to see if he could snag a quick meal, those were totes signals of love! Teehee!
Felid predators of pre-history: They will eat you
If you’re in need of a palate cleanser after all that sugar, the BBC’s Discover Wildlife has a rundown of prehistoric cats and their particularly fascinating proto-cat ancestors, some of whom looked more classically cat-like than several species of true cats. Isn’t convergent evolution cool?
There’s the famous smilodon, the saber-toothed cat, xenosmilus, the so-called shark-toothed cat, and homotherium, the scimitar-toothed cat. Outdoing each other with increasingly sword-like teeth was apparently a big thing in the felid world back then.
There’s also the cave lion, the last of the UK’s big cats, and miracinonyx, the American cheetah, but did you know that simbakubwa, the “great lion” of Africa, topped out at almost 3,000 pounds?
Simbakubwa was massive, making modern lions look almost like house cats in comparison.Dinictis looked like a cat, behaved like a cat and hunted like a cat, but was not part of the felidae family. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Simbakubwa and dinictis were examples of “false cats.” That is to say, they were not part of the felid lineage, but closely resembled cats in body plan and behavior through convergent evolution. Nature found a niche, and several different species filled it for a time.
Dinictis in particular looks strikingly like modern big cats, which makes it even more surprising to learn it’s not part of the genetic lineage of the felid line.
Finally — or firstly — there’s proailurus, the first cat or “dawn cat,” from which all true felidae species can trace their lineage. Appearing almost 31 million years ago proailurus enjoyed napping, climbing trees and eating Temptations. Okay, we made that last part up. But still. If proailurus were around today, it would probably go just as crazy for the kitty crack as our house panthers do.
This singular species of wildcat exists only on two islands and has evolved to live a semi-arboreal existence deep in the jungle.
While tigers, lions and domestic cats are the stars of the felid world and command the lion’s share (pun intended) of the attention, even from cat lovers, there are obscure species living in far-off locations where they’re rarely glimpsed by human eyes.
There’s the fishing cat, the black-footed cat and the sand cat, and then there are species that are obscure even among the obscure. The Sunda clouded leopard fits into that category, inasmuch as the unique felid can fit into any category.
Like orangutans, the Sunda clouded leopard can be found in only two places in the world: the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. They’re faced with the same existential threat that has pushed orangutans dangerously close to extinction, which is the relentless destruction of old-growth jungle to clear land for more palm oil plantations.
The species has an incredibly long tail that can match or exceed the length of its body. The large tail is crucial in a jungle environment, where it acts as a counterbalance high above the ground. Credit: Panthera
Palm oil is coveted by multinational corporations in the food and cosmetics businesses, and it’s in everything from chocolate and instant noodles to lipstick and margarine, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
The problem with razing old growth jungle and forest is that it doesn’t just grow back. They’re extremely delicate ecosystems that have arrived at a natural balance over thousands of years, with every species of animal and plant contributing something vital to the vibrant tapestry of life the jungles host and support. You can’t just plant trees and usher animals to a new home. It would take hundreds of years for those new jungles to even superficially resemble the lifegiving old growth jungle.
There are heartbreaking images of shocked orangutans sitting in the ruins of their former homes, with nothing but the stumps of trees and dozer-trodden vegetation as far as the eye can see.
Those are the lucky ones. The loggers who work for massive multinational corporations aren’t bound by rules or ethics, and they won’t wait for animals to clear out before they destroy. They often shoot orangutans on sight regardless of whether the animals are carrying young.
Roux, a baby orangutan in a “boot camp” for orphans, learns how to walk. Credit: Phys.org
That’s the primary reason why Borneo and Sumatra are now home to entire academies for orangutan orphans, who spend at least eight years learning how to fend for themselves with the help of specialists who teach lessons that would normally be taught by the orphan orangutans’ mothers. They include the very basics, like how to move and climb through the jungle, as well as crucial information such as which berries to avoid while foraging.
While there’s no “academy” for clouded leopards and the felids are more adept at avoiding human wrecking crews, they’ve suffered the same fate as orangutans when it comes to dwindling jungles.
This is the situation Sunda clouded leopards find themselves in, so when a trail camera recently captured footage of a mother and her two cubs, conservationists were thrilled.
The footage comes from camera traps belonging to the Orangutan Foundation, and it’s the first time anyone’s managed to obtain video of the Bornean clouded leopards with cubs in tow. The brief video shows the little family bounding through the jungle. They quickly move past the camera, but not before one of the cubs stops to look right at it with typical kitten curiosity.
Sunda clouded leopards are extraordinary cats. Size-wise, they are firmly in the “medium size wildcat” category, with males weighing about 50 pounds. Despite that, they are members of pantherinae, the genus of big cats, having diverged from a common ancestor shared with tigers, leopards, lions and jaguars.
As further proof of their in-between status, Sunda clouded leopards can neither purr nor roar. Typically, each species of felid can do one or the other. Even the species’ scientific nomenclature, neofelis nebulosa, references its intermediate status. (If you encounter alternate taxonomy for them, it’s because the clouded leopards of Borneo and Sumatra are considered distinct subspecies.)
“Due to a different bone structure in their neck, the clouded leopard cannot roar like the larger cats, but also cannot purr because it lacks the fully ossified hyoid bone that allows small cats this ability,” the Smithsonian National Zoo’s keepers explain.
Sunda clouded leopards have several unique adaptations that allow them to thrive in arboreal environments. Their massive tails act as crucial counterweights, allowing them to traverse branches high above the ground without falling. Their paws and paw pads are specialized for gripping tree branches, and their ankles can articulate in ways other felid ankles cannot, allowing the jungle-dwelling wildcats to descend from trees head-first.
Domestic cats infamously lack this adaptation, which is why firefighters are also part-time cat rescuers, coaxing the terrified little ones down from trees, utility poles and rooftops.
Credit: Panthera
The clouded leopards of Borneo and Sumatra are also undeniably cute. People have noticed, which is why one of Google’s auto-complete suggestions for Sunda clouded leopard suggests the word “pet” as an addition. It’s okay to fantasize about having a clouded leopard buddy, but in addition to the fact that they are endangered, they’re also wild animals.
Consider the fact that across the estimated 200,000 years of our species’ existence, homo sapiens have domesticated precisely one felid species, and even that’s not entirely accurate. Felis catus played just as much of a role — and arguably more — than humans did in their own domestication. As predators and obligate carnivores, they are unique among domestic animals, and it took and equally unique set of circumstances to bring cat and man together.
Instead of lamenting the fact that Sunda clouded leopards can’t be pets, we can admire them in the best way possible, from a distance, while helping ensure the survival of this extraordinary, distinctive species by donating to groups like Panthera, the WWF and Global Conservation.
The video is thoroughly amusing, but it also illustrates profound truths about feline intelligence, showing cats understand a lot more than people often give them credit for.
I’m loving this video of a sneaky orange tabby pretending to snooze while helping himself to his human’s food.
Little dude lays down and closes his eyes, then slowly reaches a paw out to the cap of an ice cream container, which has a glob of the good stuff on it. He checks to make sure the coast is clear by opening his eyes just a tiny bit, then slowly moves the cap over incrementally, pausing at intervals to make sure he’s still unobserved. (It looks like his human set her phone to record, then left the room so her little buddy thought no eyes were on him).
Aside from being hilarious and cute, this short clip actually illustrates something profound: Cats are much more intelligent than people usually give them credit for.
Consider the fact that to pull this off, the cat needs to be self-aware, and he needs to possess theory of mind. In other words, this cat understands he and his human have different perspectives, know different things, and that if he can move stealthily and appear to innocently nap, he can get away with eating some ice cream.
That may not seem like a big deal at first, but it means the cat understands humans can be deceived, and he understands how to do it. He cannot possibly know we have technology that can record him while we’re not looking, so that’s not a strike against him. There are plenty of things we don’t understand about animals, and we’re supposed to be the more intelligent species.
To truly appreciate how profound this is, consider that human children do not fully possess theory of mind until they’re four or five years old! That’s when they begin to appreciate the fact that other people have internal thought processes and emotions — even if they can’t articulate that — and, crucially, that what a person thinks she knows may not align with reality.
Footage like this goes well beyond refuting the old, debunked claim that animals like cats are biological automatons without thoughts or feelings. It shows they are in full possession of the cognitive tools that form the basis for higher modes of thinking. Again, while some people might hear that and say “What’s the big deal?”, it destroys all arguments that animals don’t have emotions or don’t understand what’s happening to them when humans mistreat them.
It also shows that cats are at least as intelligent as young children in all the ways that matter. They cannot verbalize their thoughts and feelings, but that has no bearing on their existence. After all, no one would argue that a child doesn’t have feelings simply because he’s unable to speak.
Lastly, there’s one more important lesson here: hide your ice cream from your fluffy pals!
“People aren’t ready for us to turn carnivore cats vegan but I’m going to do it,” the CEO of a vegan cat food brand has vowed.
In September of last year, a research paper about feline health was published to the open-access journal PLOS-One, going mostly unnoticed.
The paper’s authors claim their research proves cats fed a “nutritionally complete” vegan diet are not only just as healthy as their meat-eating counterparts, they’re actually less likely to need veterinary visits, less dependent on medication, and more likely to be given a clean bill of health by their veterinarians.
When a company called Wild Earth announced the launch of a new line of vegan cat food this month, the company pointed directly to that paper as proof that “cats fed nutritionally sound vegan diets are healthier overall than those fed meat-based diets,” as the paper’s lead author put it.
Wild Earth CEO Ryan Bethencourt, who does not have a professional background in veterinary medicine or feline nutrition, summed up his goal in a tweet: “People aren’t ready for us to turn carnivore cats vegan but I’m going to do it.”
Bethencourt calls the effort to put pets on vegan diets “vegan biohacking.” Credit: Wild Earth
He painted the new offering as a bold counter to skeptics who say vegan cat food is unhealthy.
“We expect aggressive resistance from the meat industry on the launch of this industry-pioneering vegan cat food, but we know there are A LOT of cat parents looking for healthier plant-based and more sustainable options and we want to be the leader in providing them with that choice,” Bethencourt wrote in a statement.
What he didn’t mention was the fact that the loudest voices opposing “vegan cat food” are animal welfare organizations like the SPCA and Humane Society, as well as veterinarians and nutritionists, the same people who see the consequences of cats who are deprived of meat. Over the years they have reiterated that felines are obligate carnivores who have evolved to get their nutrients from meat, with digestive systems that cannot process most plants, meaning they can’t break them down and derive nutrients from them. That’s why we don’t see servals or leopards foraging for fruit in the wild.
In addition, the announcement did not mention that the 2023 research was funded by ProVeg International, a non-profit dedicated to reducing global meat consumption, weaning people and animals off of meat and onto plant-based food.
That didn’t stop other credulous reports, like one from GreenQueen claiming Wild Earth’s vegan cat food is “built on research proving that felines can be healthy on a vegan diet.”
And that’s exactly the point — the “study” was conceived and published so that advocates of vegan cat food can point to it and say “science says” cats can survive on plants.
Bad data makes for bad science
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but the 2023 study did not examine veterinary records or log the results of vet visits over years. Instead, the data was self-reported by participants.
A total of 1,418 people responded to the survey, and only 127 of them said they feed their cats exclusively vegan diets. The claims that their cats get sick less often and do better in veterinary check-ups are based on their subjective assessments and recollections. The paper’s authors don’t know which vegan brands the 127 respondents were giving to their cats, nor do they have information on whether the food was wet or dry, how often the cats were fed, and how much they ate.
A cat eating Wild Earth’s Unicorn Pate, which is made entirely from plant products. Credit: Wild Earth
One of the metrics cited by the authors is “guardian opinion of more severe illness,” which means arbitrary feedback from people who aren’t experts in veterinary medicine or nutrition.
If including respondent opinions as “data” doesn’t bother you, consider how many people buy products like Airborne, concluding that it works because they didn’t get sick once on a cross-country flight. Airborne, you may recall, was “invented” by a teacher who claimed she figured out how to cure the common cold, something no physician has done in centuries of trying.
Like vegan cat food proponents, Airborne had its own “study” that claimed its efficacy. The company eventually paid out more than $23 million in a class action settlement for its false claims. That’s not to say vegan cat food makers are precisely like Airborne, but pointing to poorly conducted research is a tactic that works because most people won’t go to the effort of finding the study and reading it.
Current global meat consumption is unsustainable, but…
I’m a vegetarian and I’ve seen enough evidence to convince me that the current rate of meat consumption, especially in the first world, is untenable as the global population rises toward its expected 11 billion-plus peak. Those forecasts and the horrors of factory farming are motivation enough to hope human civilization consumes less meat in the future.
But I’m also a guy who loves his cat, and I think if you’re going tell me that my little pal, designed by nature to be an obligate carnivore with a digestive system and body plan that hasn’t significantly changed for ages, can stop eating meat entirely with no deleterious effects — despite the experts saying otherwise — then you really need to show me something better than a self-reported survey paid for by a vegan advocacy group.
This cat is not happy. Credit: r/cats(reddit)
Especially when veterinarians who have no financial interest in the pet food industry relate horror stories of their four-legged patients slowly going blind and cats with no other ailments suffering catastrophic consequences, with their organs shutting down because they’re not getting the vital nutrients and proteins they need to survive.
It’s a horrific way to die, and it happens because misguided people think human morals should apply to cats. Notice in the press releases and marketing materials from vegan cat food manufacturers, there’s no mention of what’s in the best interest of cats — it’s all about people making “bold” choices, “disrupting” industries and leading the Earth to a shiny future without meat or suffering.
The truth is, felines cannot synthesize the proteins that are absolutely necessary for their survival, and their digestive systems aren’t evolved for breaking down nutrients from plants. Those are well-established facts, and ignoring them will not change reality. So anyone who claims “vegan cat food” is healthy faces a much bigger task than asking people to take a self-reported survey. A survey paid for by a nonprofit that lobbies for veganism isn’t proof, it’s wishful thinking masquerading as science.
Even if the authors of the paper had the complete veterinary records of the same cats, it would only be one tentative first step toward challenging everything we know about cat nutrition. Questions aren’t settled after one study, especially with such a small data set. Studies must be repeatable, and the difference between correlation and causation isn’t settled with a single well-designed, unimpeachable study, much less a self-reported survey.
When the stakes are the lives, happiness and health of innocent animals, we should be absolutely sure we’re doing right by them.
Pain In The Bud 