Category: strays and ferals

‘My Cat’s Cat,’ PLUS: Bobby Flay Says Goodbye To Nacho

A man in Guam now has two cats after his little buddy adopted his own little buddy.

Last year we wrote about Youtuber Estefannie and her attempts to DIY a sophisticated artificial intelligence-enabled bathroom for her cat Teddy and her “cat’s cat,” Luna, after the former racked up a $3,000 vet bill prompted by an incorrigible plastic-munching habit.

One of the problems, Estefannie explained in her entertaining video on the building and coding process, was that Luna was “technically not my cat, this is Teddy-Bear’s cat.” Luna “uses the same litter box as Teddy,” so Estefannie had to train a machine learning algorithm for the high tech bathroom’s cameras to distinguish between felines.

I’ve always been fascinated by the phenomenon of “cat’s cats,” meaning stray cats who are adopted by la vida loca-living kittypets to share in their warmth, yums and human servantry.

“You gotta move in, Stripes,” I can imagine a well-fed moggie telling a stray buddy. “The service is great, the food is out of this world and the ambience? Oh, the ambience!”

In those cases, the stray usually follows the housecat right into their new home, which is what happened when Christian Fleming’s cat, Little, came back with a friend.

“I was surprised the cat came inside, initially,” said Fleming, who lives in Guam. “But if he’s hungry enough to be that brave, I wasn’t going to begrudge the food.”

Little, left, and his new friend Tedo. Credit: Christian Fleming
Little, left, and his new buddy Tedo. Credit: Christian Fleming

Fleming named the new cat Tedo and told Newsweek he’s “90 percent sure he used to be someone’s pet or they left him, which is largely the case with friendly strays out here.” Guam is a US territory in the Pacific, about 1,450 miles east of the Philippines, and to say it’s got a stray cat and dog problem is an understatement, with tens of thousands of homeless animals.

One local veterinarian called the problem “astronomical” in an article for the Pacific Daily News, pointing out there more than 60,000 dogs alone on the 210 square mile island. By contrast there are 168,000 people living in Guam, meaning there’s more than one dog per three people. Cats similarly run rampant, although estimates of their population are harder to pin down.

There’s been a strong effort to spay and neuter in recent years, but local veterinary groups have a massive job in front of them to get the Micronesian island’s domestic animal population under control and reduce the suffering of unwanted cats and dogs.

Tedo is one of the lucky ones and has settled down nicely in his new digs. He’s adjusted to indoor life, regular meals and feeling protected with Little and Fleming, who says he now has “a small herd following me around” in his home.

“He has since gotten braver and more comfortable,” Fleming said. “When he jumped on me to snuggle with Little, I knew he had decided to live here.”

RIP Nacho

I’m not a fan of gastronomical fetishism, the concept of celebrity chefs or the idea that watching someone else eating food on television counts as entertainment, but I do respect Bobby Flay for two things: he’s a cat guy and he had a hilarious cameo in HBO’s Entourage in which he enraged high-powered agent Ari Gold by dating Mrs. Ari while the two were separated.

Flay, who has been the star of more than 20 cooking shows (not including specials) on the Food Network and Cooking Channel, saw the potential for profit in the pet food market and launched Made By Nacho in 2021, naming the food line after his little buddy.

Sadly the photogenic Maine Coon died this week, Flay announced in an Instagram post. Nacho was only nine years old and while that may seem a tragically young age for a cat to die — and it’s tragic any time someone’s beloved pet passes away — Maine Coons lose in lifespan what they gain in size, living an average of 10 to 13 years compared to the 13 to 18 year life expectancy of domestic felines in general.

Flay used the occasion of his cat’s death to hawk his outrageously expensive pet food line, which is weird. In his goodbye post, Flay wrote that “Nacho’s inclusiveness in our home inspired me to create something that would nourish cats everywhere.” Everywhere meaning houses where people don’t mind paying $3 for a 3oz can. (We don’t endorse any particular brand at PITB but Bud’s wet food, which always has real meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t include grain or fillers, costs 51 cents per meal when bought in bulk from Chewy.)

Cat food issues aside, Flay’s undoubtedly grieving his well-loved little friend, and although he recently adopted two more cats, that’s little consolation for losing a feline you’ve loved and bonded with. Best of luck to the Flay family and RIP Nacho.

Is That A Mountain Lion Or A House Cat?

“The camera never lies,” the old saying goes, but it turns out that’s not quite true.

During my crime reporting days I wrote an unusual story about a guy who’d been picked up on armed robbery charges. The suspect’s face was visible, the security camera footage was unusually sharp, and the suspect himself had a previous armed robbery conviction from years earlier.

It looked like an open and shut case.

There was just one problem: The man had an airtight alibi. He had half a dozen people willing to go on record saying he was at a party 70 miles away when the robbery happened, as well as ATM receipts showing he’d withdrawn cash that night far from the site of the robbery. When he retained a lawyer, the attorney was able to show his cell phone records placed him at the party, and forensic videography showed the man in the armed robbery footage, despite bearing a striking resemblance to the suspect, was taller and moved differently.

In the end the police dropped their case and found the real robber, but I never forgot the story, nor my conversations with forensics experts who explained how something as simple as taking measurements at a crime scene, from the same angle and using the same cameras, could prove a case of mistaken identity. Things like gait, observing the dominant hand and other body language also factor heavily.

One forensics expert told me it’s like watching the replay in a baseball game: You can be absolutely sure a runner is out by watching footage from one angle, but footage of the same slide from another angle can clearly prove the runner’s foot made contact with the base before the fielder’s glove tagged him.

That kind of attention to detail is what helped Thomas Keller rule out the possibility that a mountain lion was roaming the fields of Lower Macungie Township in Pennsylvania. On Sunday, Pennsylvania state police issued a warning to people in the area that “a large feline was seen in the fields” near a residential road.

Keller, a furbearer biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, headed down to the area earlier today and found the exact spot where a local homeowner had photographed the supposedly wild cat. Using a life-size cut-out of a puma, which he placed carefully where the cat was standing, and a camera placed at the same height and angle used in the original photograph, Keller proved the cat in the photo was much smaller than a puma.

“It’s just a house cat,” Keller said flatly after producing his own photos of the spot.

House Cat Or Mountain Lion?
The original photo, left, and Keller with his scale cut-out of a mountain lion, right. Keller says the cat in the photo is probably a large, well-fed stray.

Like the forensic videographer who helped clear a man of a robbery charge, Keller was able to disprove the immediate conclusions of people who saw the image. He says the work is important because “there’s a lot of fear and panic that can spread.”

“We will generally go out and try to talk with who reported it and get perspective on where the photo was taken,” Keller told the Lehigh Valley News. “We look at original picture and measure what we can … We look at things in the picture that we can get scale from. It might look like a mountain lion, but we need to know what those measurements are to get the scale.”

Confusion over what the camera shows is compounded by the optical effects of zoom, which can throw off the observer’s sense of scale, he told The Morning Call, a local newspaper. He said people who aren’t sure what they’re looking at should call their state game commissions, or comparable offices, to get help from experts.

As for Pennsylvania, while there have been historical reports of mountain lions, most were decades ago and the handful that panned out were cases in which the large felines escaped from private captivity or traveling circuses.

Although it’s not unheard of for pumas to migrate east, they’re no longer extant in the region and sightings of the elusive cats are almost always cases of mistaken identity when people see bobcats or large housecats.

“There’s none,” Keller said. “We get hundreds of these reports every year and we haven’t been able to substantiate one yet.”

Header image credit Cindy Lou Photos/Wikimedia Commons

Australia ‘Declares War’ On Cats, Plans To Eradicate Ferals And Strays

Australia announced the plan after a new report called cats the greatest driver of extinction in the country.

While their neighbors in New Zealand called for “woah on feeral kets” earlier this year, Australia is planning its own nationwide effort to wipe out free-roaming cats in an attempt to prevent the extinction of local wildlife.

The “war” announcement, made on Wednesday by Australia’s Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, comes on the heels of a report that calls “invasive animals” like cats the primary force behind species extinction in most of the world, including Australia. The report was released by a group of academics from 143 countries who make up the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which advises the UN and sovereign states on wildlife policy.

Plibersek singled out felines in a press conference announcing the plan.

“They played a role in Australia’s two latest extinctions … they are one of the main reasons Australia is the mammal extinction capital of the world,” she said.

In addition to targeting felines on the mainland, Plibersek said Australia’s government would attempt to completely purge Christmas and French islands of their cat populations.

I have not had the opportunity to read an advance of the report, which was just released, and it will require careful reading as well as additional research before I’d feel comfortable commenting on the claims. That said, the numbers bandied about in press accounts (which claim cats kill more than 2.6 billion animals a year in Australia) are similar to the claims we’ve heard before, so unless there’s original research here and not a rehash of the same meta-analyses frequently cited in stories about cats and their impact on biodiversity, it doesn’t change the simple fact that it’s bad policy to act without reliable data.

I’m talking about an actual effort to count the feral and stray cat population in defined areas, as the Washington, D.C. Cat Count did using trail cameras, monitors and other methods. Obviously that can’t be applied to an entire country, but it can be done in different locations and provide a baseline to work with. Without that effort, the estimates of feline impact are nothing more than guesswork by professors sitting behind desks often entire continents away from the locales in question, plugging invented numbers into formulas intended to extrapolate totals for birds, mammals, lizards and insects killed by felis catus.

While similar studies estimated the number of cats in the US at between 25 and 125 million, Australia’s federal government says there are between 1.4 and 5.6 million cats in the country. If that’s true, it means each free-roaming cat in Australia kills between 500 and 1,850+ animals a year. It’s also difficult to accept estimates of predatory impact when the corresponding estimates of total cat population are so vague.

a fluffy cat on a sidewalk
A “feeral ket.” Credit: Ferhan Akgu00fcn/Pexels

Still, as I’ve written in earlier posts, government intervention was inevitable without proactive measures. Australia’s cat lovers and caretakers would do well to voluntarily keep their pets inside, and to double their efforts to catch, spay/neuter and find homes for as many strays as they can.

If you live in Australia, you have until December to provide feedback to the federal government, and it’s probably a good idea to check with your local animal welfare groups, which are undoubtedly composing their own responses to the plan.

New Zealanders Make No Excuses For Shooting Cats, Calling Them ‘Bird-Killing Machines’

There’s not a shred of evidence that shows arbitrarily gunning down cats has any positive impact on the environment, but that hasn’t stopped vigilantes from hunting them.

There’s this bizarre and infuriating idea among people who call themselves conservationists that they can save certain animals by running around and arbitrarily gunning down other animals.

These people will shoot certain species of birds to protect other bird species, extirpate ferrets, pine martens and various other mustelids, and have had a hard-on for cats ever since a series of shockingly dishonest pieces of propaganda masquerading as studies used fabulated data to paint felines as furry demon spawn who feast on birds by the billions in countries like the US, New Zealand and Australia.

They used to be quiet about it because they realized gunning down cats isn’t exactly good PR for their cause, but now they don’t even bother.

Like John McConnell, a 67-year-old New Zealander whose hobby is going out with a rifle to shoot cats at night because he thinks that’s an effective way to protect birds.

“I shoot them,” McConnell told The Guardian. “Seriously. If it’s a cat and I know whose it is, I’ll leave it. But if it’s a stray cat – it’s a goner. Even if it’s domestic and it’s out at night, I’m getting to the point where I’d shoot those as well, because they shouldn’t be out.”

Two things to note here:

  • McConnell is playing vigilante cat killer, having appointed himself arbiter of which animals get to live and which ones don’t, but he doesn’t understand that stray, feral and pet cats are all the same species. This is a man who thinks the difference between a domesticated and wild animal is whether it has a home.
  • The article contains no statistics and nothing in the way of numbers other than a wild estimate of New Zealand’s cat population, yet it’s filled with anecdotes: people who claim they see more birds after they’ve bagged a couple of cats, but can offer no evidence. That’s not an effective or smart way to make public policy.

Between the bogus studies and the lack of any data remotely suggesting that arbitrarily shooting domesticated animals has a measurable impact on bird populations, there is nothing to support this kind of ruthless nonsense. You’d think that, if an entire country is going to war with an animal species and has vowed to take potentially millions of lives, there would be something — anything — to back up the claim that inflicting all that misery and suffering on sentient creatures would accomplish a conservation goal.

mouseplagueaustralia
Australia’s reward for culling cats: annual mouse plagues for the past three years since killing millions of cats with air-dropped sausages laced with a chemical that is poisonous only to felids.

Especially after their neighbors, the Australians, killed two million cats with poisoned sausages in a similarly misguided attempt at protecting wildlife and were rewarded for their efforts with three years (and counting) of biblical mouse plagues that destroyed thousands of homes, farms and businesses, and caused billions in damage. Mice, by the way, are a non-native species introduced by settlers from the UK.

Credit another blow to the environment from human behavior as people randomly shoot cats. I suppose blaming cats is easier than admitting we’ve behaved abominably and are the root cause of these problems.

But let’s stop for a moment and imagine if the situation were reversed. Imagine people who want to protect cats decided they’re going to start shooting dogs, foxes, coyotes, owls, eagles and other large birds of prey.

Suppose someone decided that John McConnell’s dog shouldn’t be out for walks and shot it in an act of conservationist vigilantism.

Would anyone tolerate that? Wouldn’t they be labeled lunatics and condemned? What makes the cat culling any different, aside from “justification” in the form of a handful of widely-condemned, heavily-criticized studies that violate just about every elementary rule of scientific research?

Here’s comedian Bill Burr’s take on the absurdity of human efforts to manage wildlife population by shooting animals. Burr, whose everyman facade and humor often mask salient points, also takes the rest of us to task by pointing out it’s humanity, not the behavior of animals, that has the biggest impact on the planet and its wildlife, yet no one’s suggesting we cull our own population.

“I think it’s weird that human beings are trying to control the populations of animals. You know? Like any time the deer population gets out of control, some dude will get on TV like [puts on a redneck accent] ‘Okay, the deer population is up to about 17, 1,800, realistically we need to get that number down to about five or six, alright? So starting tomorrow, if you got a gun, f—ing shoot them in the face!’ I’m just sitting at home like, ‘What are the deer doing that’s so bad for the environment?’ [Slips into a redneck accent again] ‘They eat all the f—in’ grass! They comin’ up to trees, just nibblin’! Just nibblin’!’ Dude, the deer didn’t put a hole in the ozone layer, alright? That’s not a bunch of dogs clogging up the freeway. It’s us, alright?”

Then he lays into people who breed like rabbits, and this is a personal pet peeve of mine whenever I hear someone like Alec Baldwin, a man who has eight children, four massive homes, a fleet of SUVs and an army of nannies, holding court on environmental responsibility and global warming. Baldwin has 12 to 16 people living under his roof at any time, with palatial homes that consume more energy each than entire European villages, yet that doesn’t stop him from adopting a patrician tone and lecturing the “peasants” (his word) on their environmental responsibilities.

A word of caution: while I think Burr is hilarious, this clip is also peppered with obscenities, as his most of his material. If that sort of thing bothers you, skip the clip. If not, well, he’s got a point:

Is The Croydon Cat Killer Real? Group Claims More Than 1,000 Cats Killed

Police say foxes are responsible for killing cats in London, but animal welfare activists insist there is indisputable evidence of human cruelty.

It’s difficult to know what to make of the Croydon cat killer story.

Initially, people from London-area cat rescues said they were looking for a person who had mutilated dozens of cats in the South London area. As the number increased to more than 100 and public outrage became palpable, police opened an investigation.

The story was wild. Newspapers bandied about disturbing figures, claiming hundreds of cats mutilated at the hands of a sick individual or several people. There were reports of feline remains artfully arranged in the driveways and on the front steps of victims’ homes to inflict maximum trauma on the people who discovered them, with allegedly clean cuts indicating a human with a blade was responsible.

Then in 2021, the Metropolitan Police announced they were closing their case after three years and almost $200,000 spent.

Foxes, not cruel humans, were responsible for the cat killings, they said. A study in the journal Veterinary Pathology found fox DNA on the corpses of 32 cats and said puncture wounds on the feline bodies were consistent with fox bites.

London-area animal rescues disputed the findings, saying the study couldn’t account for the mutilation of so many animals. The study’s authors blamed “badly behaved foxes” who were scavenging on the remains of strays and pets killed in traffic or by ingesting antifreeze.

a black and white cat on top of the table
Credit: Fajer u015eehirli/Pexels

Lots of other people refused to accept the Metropolitan Police conclusion, including people whose cats had been victimized. In some of those cases, veterinarians concluded the cats were killed by humans, not animals.

Which brings us to now.

The Mirror has teamed up with the South London Animal Rights Network (SLAIN) to create an interactive map showing the locations where more than 1,000 dead cats were found over the past several years.

“This map shows where incidents have occurred but also and perhaps just as important, where incidents have never happened,” SLAIN’s Boudicca Rising told the paper. “If you know of someone who made journeys to these locations on these dates please do get in touch with us. All information will be treated in the strictest of confidence.”

Documents obtained by journalists in London indicate there was internal tension at the Metropolitan Police over the resources that had been allocated to the cat case, and spokesperson for the force admitted that was a consideration. But the department stands by its assessment and says there’s no evidence a serial cat killer is on the loose.

It’s difficult to believe someone or a group of people could evade capture while allegedly killing more than 1,000 cats since 2015, especially in a city like London where CCTV cameras blanket most neighborhoods.

There are an estimated one million CCTV cameras covering 607 square miles of London, and the commonly-cited statistic claims Londoners are caught on CCTV cameras an average of 300 times per day. Other estimates claim that number is too high, and the average UK citizen is spotted on a municipal surveillance camera 70 times a day.

Notably, those figures do not include private cameras like Ring systems and surveillance operated by private businesses. The point is, it’s very difficult to avoid cameras in London, and if there are human feline killers out there, they must know an awful lot about where the cameras are.

If the phantom cat-killers are real, not only have they been able to avoid appearing on surveillance, they’ve evaded the watchful eyes of neighbors as the story circulated widely in the press. The theory that the killings were the work of animals, mostly under the cover of night and beneath the notice of people, sounded more plausible to many people.

Still, the theory doesn’t neatly fit the evidence.

Not all veterinarians agree that foxes are the culprit. While the veterinary pathologists who authored the study looked at photographs of the mutilated felines, some veterinarians who directly examined the bodies of slain cats concluded they were killed with blades. When experts are at odds over evidence, what can you do but gather more information and hope for the best?

London may have to do what Washington, D.C. did and deploy low-to-the-ground trail cameras and regular surveillance cameras around the city. In Washington, the goal was to get an accurate census on the number of strays and ferals living within city limits. In London, a census could be a bonus as they finally get an answer to the question of who’s been killing all those cats.