Pain In The Bud

Petition: Texas Teacher Accused Of Abusing Cat Should Be Reinstated ‘No Questions Asked’

The petition says “an exceptional teacher” has been “unjustly accused.” The petition’s creator blamed “snowflakes” for sharing the video of the incident with police, who arrested the teacher on Aug. 25.

A new petition claims Texas high school teacher Emily Marie Benner has been “unfairly accused” of abusing a cat and demands Benner’s school district reinstate her as a teacher immediately, “no questions asked.”

The petition’s creator blames “soft, slow-minded” “snowflakes” for allegedly manufacturing outrage, claims Benner could sue police for arresting her, and demands authorities drop charges against her.

Benner was arrested on Aug. 25 after police and school administrators were provided with a video showing the 25-year-old teacher allegedly abusing a cat two days earlier. In the video, which was shot in a classroom at Westwood High School of Palestine, Texas, Benner tells her students to hold the screaming feline down as she staples shut an incision on the cat’s abdomen, according to police, who also said the cat was not given anesthesia.

Benner was teaching an animal science class but is not a veterinarian and isn’t licensed to practice veterinary surgery. It’s not clear how she obtained the cat, nor have authorities said who made the initial incision on the cat’s abdomen. Police said the feline is recovering in the care of a veterinarian.

According to the petition, Benner is “a dedicated agricultural teacher in Westwood” who “has been unjustly accused of animal cruelty.”

“Her charge not only questions her professional integrity but also jeopardizes her role as an influential educator in our community. As people who appreciate her significant contributions to education in Palestine, TX, USA, we understand how detrimental this baseless accusation is to our local education system. Considering she has been an exceptional teacher, we call for the immediate dismissal of these charges and the reinstatement of Emily Marie Benner in her role, no questions asked.”

Teacher accused of animal cruelty — A still image from Benner’s high school classroom on Aug. 23 shows students holding down the thrashing, screaming feline while Benner staples its abdomen.

While Westwood School District Superintendent Wade Stanford said the “procedure amounted to animal cruelty” and promised to take “immediate and decisive action to address this issue” in a letter to parents of Westwood High School students, he did not say Benner was suspended or comment on her current status.

Benner’s arrest and alleged suspension as an educator is a “grave actionable breach to a respected member of our community,” the petition claims, asking signatories to help “right this wrong.” It also claims Benner has not been afforded due process.

“It’s the Christian thing to do and the right thing to do!” one person who signed the petition commented.

The petition’s creator, Jim Hughes of Palestine, made a post in Benner’s defense on Facebook, arguing that people were “spreading hate” by criticizing Benner. The post sparked arguments among locals who said home surgical procedures on animals are common in rural communities, and others who disputed that assertion, insisting it’s cruel not to provide the professional care of a veterinarian.

“Do you think everyone has the money to take their pet to the vet?” Hughes wrote, blaming the criticism on “snowflakes” who live in a “soft, slow-minded world.”

Arguing that animal owners “would be broke” if they sought veterinary help “for every incident,” Hughes said home surgery is just the way it’s done: “Every farmer I know castrates with just a pocket knife and no pain medicine.”

Top image credit: G. Fring/Pexels

Amazing Cats: The Adorable Colocolo, Feline Of The Pampas

With a perpetual kitten-like appearance and mismatched coat patterns, colocolos may look like the product of AI or Photoshop, but these little ones are very real — and very feisty.

We’re heading back into obscure territory with this edition of Amazing Cats, focusing on a little-known species that ekes out an existence in the forests and plains of South America.

The colocolo, also known as the Pampas cat, superficially resembles the familiar house cat, but a closer look reveals some striking differences.

Colocolos are small, about the same size and weight as felis catus, but their tails can be quite a bit shorter and extremely fluffy.

Colocolo full — Colocolos have pattern and color combinations seen only in their species. This one has rosettes on his body and tabby stripes on his limbs and tail. Some colocolos have thick tails with tabby-like rings, while others have bushy tails more commonly associated with long haired domestic cat breeds.

There are at least five variations of fur color and pattern, ranging from marbled to jaguaresque rosettes and, most strikingly, a seemingly mismatched pattern in which the legs have dark stripes over rusty/cinnamon-colored fur, which contrasts dramatically with the gray, gold, silver or tan of their bodies. The overall effect makes some colocolos look like they’ve been photoshopped, or assembled from spare parts.

Some colocolos appear to have solid-color coats which are actually an agouti pattern with barely visible bands of slightly darker fur.

While the species may look stocky, conservationists say it’s smaller than it appears, with its fur making up the majority of its “bulk.”

Colocolo color variant — This photo might look like a fake, but it’s a documented combination of coat pattern and color among colocolos.

As if that wasn’t enough to distinguish them, Pampas cats have neotenous features that give them an even stronger kittenlike appearance compared to house cats and comparable species like the rusty spotted cat.

In other words, they’re very cute and looking at them can trigger the same protective instincts we feel when we see kittens and cute adult cats. But don’t let their disarming features deceive you — these little guys are not cuddly, don’t respond well to people who get close, and will turn aggressive if you encroach on their space.

Cute colocolo — This adorable colocolo appears to be giving the side-eye to someone. Note the slight suggestion of the classic tabby “M” on the forehead.

While they’re alternately called the Pampas cat, the word “colocolo” comes from the language of the Mapuche, an indigenous group that lived in lands that are parts of modern day Chile and Argentina.

In the Mapuche language, Colo Colo was the name of a Mapuche warrior who led his people in their resistance against Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, but it’s also the name of an evil rat-like creature in Mapuche folklore. It’s not clear how a feline came to bear the name, but the species — leopardus colocolo — is often called gato colocolo to distinguish between the historical figure and the modern-day Chilean football club, Colo-Colo.

Although they’re associated with the pampa, the flatlands in and around Peru best known for the mysterious Nazca lines, colocolo are adaptable and thrive in forests, jungles, wetlands, and mountain ranges like the Andes, among other terrain.

Their range stretches from Argentina in the south through Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, western Brazil and an isolated population in Uruguay.

Despite their relatively wide distribution and variety of habitat, colocolos are not well understood. Experts still haven’t settled the question of whether they’re all one species or whether subgroups qualify as their own subspecies. Their hunting habits are not well-documented, although it’s known they prefer small rodents, and there is ongoing debate about whether they are crepuscular, like most felid species, or nocturnal.

Colocolo share a continent with jaguars, pumas, ocelot, jaguarundi, margay, oncilla, kodkod, Geoffrey’s cat and the Andean cat, and the fact that they live in the deep wilderness makes them more difficult to study.

Because their coloration and coat patterns can vary so widely, Pampas cats are often mistaken for other small wildcats living in South America, and people unfamiliar with their species sometimes mistake them for domestic felines.

They’re also very rare in zoos, with only one US zoo (Cincinnati) counting them among their exhibits, and only four Pampas cats in captivity worldwide. (Excluding private captivity by poachers and illegal wildlife traders.)

Like virtually every species of wildcat, the colocolo’s numbers are declining due to a number of factors, primarily human activity like habitat destruction, sport hunting and development cutting populations off from each other.

The more people are aware of these beautiful and little-known felines, the better their chances for long term survival as conservation groups receive more donations to help protect them, and lawmakers are pressured to protect the wilderness where they live.

Yawning colocolo — Like all cats, colocolos appreciate the value of a nice nap.

Previously:

Amazing Cats: The Mysterious Marbled Cat
Amazing Cats: The Rusty-Spotted Cat
Amazing Cats: ‘He Who Kills With One Bound’
Amazing Cats: The Puma

Amazing Cats: The Sunda Clouded Leopard

Texas Teacher Grins In Mugshot After STAPLING A Screaming Cat In Front Of Students

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.

Texas teacher charged with animal cruelty — 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.

Brenner animal cruelty case — 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.”

Benner was charged with a single count of animal cruelty to a non-livestock animal, a felony under Texas penal law. She posted $7,500 bail, according to KLTV.

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.

Like, OMG! This Kitty And Puma Are Totes Besties!

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!

@cricketandstrawfl

Phoebe making forest friends 🐆 🌲 🐈‍⬛ #wildlife #kitten #cougar #mountainlion #animals #puma #catsoftiktok #cat #catlover #wildanimals #animallover #pnw #westcoast #yyj #vancouverisland #bc #canada #wildlifephotography

♬ Funny – Gold-Tiger

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?

Dinictus — 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.

Top image via Youtube.

Amazing Cats: The Sunda Clouded Leopard

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.

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.

Baby boot camp — 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.

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.