Tag: cat

“She’s Like,’Where Are The Snacks?'”: Smithsonian Big Cat Keeper On Working With Tigers And Lions

“Oh my God, this is my job every day!” Charlie Shaw says of his position as a big cat keeper at one of America’s most well-known and well-funded zoos.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work with big cats, WTOP has a new interview with Charlie Shaw, a big cat keeper at the Smithsonian National Zoo.

Hint: it involves a lot of meat, physical enrichment, olfactory enrichment, and checking on the felids to make sure they’re healthy.

Shaw starts his day by feeding the hungry apex predators, including Damai, a 16-year-old tiger who wants all the snacks, and Vostok, a fast-growing young Amur tiger who doesn’t know a genetically-compatible mate is arriving in short order, and he’ll get to be a dad if things go well.

The genetic matches are carefully made to avoid inbreeding and give the species the best chance to recover.

“Tigers are critically endangered,” Shaw told WTOP. “What we want to do is make sure the gene pool itself is still very diverse.”

Vostok loves to swim. Credit: Charlie Shaw/Smithsonian National Zoo

Shaw says he’s working his dream job.

“You walk in and the tigers all chuff at you, or the lions roar. And you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this is my job every day!’”

THAT story

I’m aware of it, and I think every person concerned about the welfare of cats should at least know it’s happening.

But it’s also extremely distressing. I actually had nightmares the night after I read it. So I’m offering a strong warning here: think about it before you click the story. The report is by CNN, so there are no gory images and the reporters aren’t trying to make anyone uncomfortable, but the reality of it is bad enough.

For everyone who doesn’t want to know the more upsetting details, the essence of it is that there’s a network of people making “content” of themselves torturing and killing cats, and a rapidly growing audience of people who pay thousands of dollars to “sponsor” the horrific content.

They have “menus” set up where people can select the cat they want to see tortured and specify the ways in which the cat should be hurt and killed. CNN, citing a group of vigilantes trying to dismantle the networks, says people pay up to $1,300 for the “service.” Collectively, the torturers and their audience refer to themselves as “cat lovers.”

The Chinese government, to no one’s surprise, does not care. There are no criminal penalties for what the content producers are doing, and the government hasn’t responded to complaints from concerned people or media networks.

I might address it in the future, but for now I don’t even know what to say. I was away when I read it, and it made me really want to hug Bud and make sure he’s never out of my care. Ever.

A Missing Genetic Sequence Leads To Orange Fur In Cats. Could It Be Responsible For Behavioral Differences Too?

Scientists have uncovered the elusive mechanisms behind coat color expression, opening the door to a new question: is fur pigment connected to personality?

When Professor Hiroyuki Sasaki retired, he wasn’t done with science. He just wanted to use it to better understand his cats.

The Japanese geneticist raised more than $73,000 from Japanese and international cat lovers and put together a team, including partners from the US. Then he began the hard work of scrutinizing feline DNA to find out why some cats are orange, and why most all-orange cats are male while virtually all calico and tortoiseshell cats, whose coats have splotches of orange, are female.

It turns out there’s no genetic instruction telling the fur to take on an orange pigment — it’s the absence of a segment of DNA, which governs pigment production, that does it.

In other words, ginger cats are mutants.

Most fully-orange cats are male because the mutation removes the DNA segment in the X chromosome. As males have X and Y chromosomes, they only need the mutation in the single X chromosome for their coats to express in that shade.

Lots of cat lovers swear that coat color and temperament are connected.

Females have an XX chromosomal arrangement, so they need the mutation in both chromosomes to turn tangerine. If the mutation only shows up in one chromosome, you get patches of the color instead of a consistent coat.

That explains why 80 percent of ginger cats are male, and why only one in 3,000 calicos and tortoiseshells are male. A male cat would need an extra X chromosome, XXY, to be born with a calico or tortoiseshell coat. One of the side effects, however, is sterility.

Scientists estimate only one in a thousand male calicos/tortoiseshells can reproduce and pass their unique mutations on.

It’s not just coat color either. The mutation impacts skin and eye color, which is why a ginger cat might have a pink nose compared to the terracotta shade of a void cat or a silver tabby.

Are orange cats really more friendly and silly?

So how does this relate to temperament, and the many people who attest to a particular personality associated with orange cats? Some people say ginger tabbies are more loyal, affectionate and social than cats of other coat colors, but they’re also more prone to doing boneheaded things.

The stereotypes have picked up steam online, where people often share memes depicting orange felines as earnestly derpy, but they may be on to something — or at least, it can’t be ruled out until we know more.

Ginger cats are not the sharpest claw on the paw, according to popular memes.

Because of the missing piece of genetic code, a specific gene, ARHGAP36, isn’t “expressed.” Like so many genes, scientists don’t fully understand everything ARHGAP36 impacts, or how alterations can lead to unexpected changes elsewhere.

“Many cat owners swear by the idea that different coat colours and patterns are linked with different personalities,” Sasaki told the BBC. “There’s no scientific evidence for this yet, but it’s an intriguing idea and one I’d love to explore further.”

Header image via Pexels

Wordless Wednesday: They Rule The Night

Cats were built by mother nature to stalk by starlight.

From the African savannas to the Andean mountains, the jungles of the Amazon to the Hollywood hills, and everywhere in suburban America, cats of all types and sizes prowl the night. With eyes that are up to eight times more sensitive in the dark, incredibly sensitive hearing, and whiskers that can pick up the slightest change in air density, felids were built by mother nature to stalk by starlight.

Some cat species are crepuscular, some are nocturnal, but as ambush predators, they’re all at their best when hunting under the cover of darkness.

Image credits, top to bottom: Per Karlson/PVKFoto, Reddit r/natureisf***inglit, Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Preserve, Wikimedia Commons, Steve Winter/National Geographic, National Park Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Point/Counterpoint: ‘You Don’t Tell Me When To Sleep, Human!’ vs ‘A Consistent Bedtime Is Important!’

Buddy the Cat argues that a consistent bedtime is key to feeling good and healthy, while Buddy the Cat counters that stupid humans don’t tell him when to sleep, HE decides. Who’s right, Buddy or Buddy?

A Consistent Bedtime Is Important

What are you doing, human? It’s bedtime! Mow mow! You’re supposed to be in this bed and laying down so I can use your face as a pillow, drape myself across you, or burrow comfortably against your side to soak up body heat.

What am I supposed to do without a human sleeping substrate? How can any cat be expected to sleep like this? I know you claim there are so called “stray cats” who don’t have humans, but that is preposterous and I don’t believe it.

Let’s go! I read an article saying it’s very important to have a regular sleep schedule. Well, actually, I just saw the headline, but I got the gist of it, which is that you have to go to bed right meow!

You Don’t Tell Me When To Sleep, Human!

Sleep? Now? That’s ridiculous.

No, I have shadows to chase, toys to kick around and I really wanted to get into redecorating things around here, because they’re looking a little too orderly for my tastes.

Go ahead, go to bed. In a few minutes I’ll cry outside the bedroom door until you get out of bed and open it, then I’ll decide I don’t want to go in after all. I’ll do that two, maybe three more times just because I can.

Oh, you thought I was settling in? Nah. I have a bowl of water to splash all over the place, then I’ll cry until you get up again and refill it, and when you get back into bed for the fifth or sixth time, I’ll cry incessantly again because my dry food bowl is empty, meaning there’s plenty of food but it’s all pushed up to the sides.

Do not forget our pre-slumber ritual! You have to scratch my chin while I purr and you tell me what a good boy I am. Then you have to scratch the top of my head while I purr and you tell me what a good boy I am.

After that, maybe I’ll sleep. We’ll see.

Does The Budster Love Me?

“Love is a strong word, human. I prefer ‘tolerate.’ On days when you anticipate my snack cravings before I verbalize them, you could maybe say I’m fond of you.”

Newsweek has an interesting interview with a cat behaviorist on the subject of whether cats love their humans.

Chantal Howard, a certified cat trainer with Feline Focus Training in Ottawa, told the magazine there are nine primary behaviors that indicate — or confirm — a house tiger loves his or her person. Most of these won’t be new to PITB readers, who are of course among the most cat-savvy people out there and have magnificent taste in cat blogs, but it’s still a handy way to ascertain how your feline overlord feels about you.

So how does Buddy do according to this checklist? Let’s see:

Headbutting: ✅ His Lordship is quite fond of headbutting me and favors me with dozens of headbutts throughout the day, ensuring his pheromones remain on me. You know, in case some other cat somehow comes wandering in and there’s a dispute about which furball owns me.
Kneading: ✅ Considering the fact that I’ve had to toss quite a few t-shirts because of claw rips, I’d say that’s a yes. At least he doesn’t knead my face anymore, as he liked to do when he was a kitten and would take his perch on my shoulder, nuzzle up to my neck and make biscuits against my beard.
Purring: ✅ Nine times out of 10, Buddy’s purr is inaudible, but it’s there. It’s a bit odd that such a talkative, loud cat barely makes a buzz. He likes to lay on my chest and purr up a storm while I rub his head and tell him he’s got admirers all over the world.
Chirping: ✅ Yes! In fact, chirps and trills make up a significant part of the Buddinese language. While meows can be positive, negative or demanding (“I can see the bottom of my bowl! This is an outrage, human!”), trills and chirps are always happy sounds.
Nipping: ✅ Unfortunately, yes.
Licking: ✅ He grooms my hair and my beard, and when I shave he licks my face, which is pretty gross.
Bringing Gifts: ❌ Negative. Then again, what kind of gifts can he bring me when he’s an indoor cat and doesn’t fully understand the concept of hunting?
Exposing Belly: ❌ Does he expose his belly? Yes. Does he feel comfortable enough to snooze in my lap with his belly exposed? Of course. Does he want me to give him belly rubs? No, he emphatically does not. The primordial pouch is not to be touched!
Tail Position: ✅ One of the most awesome things is the fact that Bud’s tail goes immediately into happy mode when I say “Hi, Bud!”, when I hold my hand out for a headbutt, and when I talk to him in general. His tail quivers with excitement when we play with the laser pointer or his favorite toy, and when he catches the first whiff of catnip.

So that’s 7 of 9, or 7 of 8 if we count gifts as N/A due to Bud’s hilarious ineptitude when it comes to even grasping the concept of hunting.

Bud has been known to throw up from excitement when I return from vacation, he often naps by the door when I go out, he talks to me constantly, and he’s rarely more than three or four feet away from me at any given time. All those things, plus our strong bond, have proven to me that he does love me, but it’s also nice to confirm it with a behaviorist’s criteria.

How does your cat perform on the checklist? Don’t forget to share your results in the comments.