The semi-arboreal marbled cat is arguably the most elusive feline on the planet.
Dear readers, before you think this is a joke entry about Bud, let me emphasize we’re talking about the marbled cat, not the well-marbled cat.
“I am NOT chubby, I am meowscular!”
“I’ve never heard of a marbled cat,” you might be thinking, and there’s a good reason for that.
These little guys are incredibly elusive, live far from most humans and are found only in Asia. They’re extremely difficult to track and locate in the wild and haven’t been the subject of any comprehensive field study, granting them an air of mystery in an era when you can find almost anything you want to know about almost any animal with a few clicks.
There’s a whole lot we don’t know about marbled cats, including their behavior in the wild, how long they gestate, what they eat and how they’ve successfully adapted to so many varied habitats.
Credit: Wildcats Magazine
The singular species is semi-arboreal. Almost all cats can climb trees. The problem is getting down afterward, which is why so many domestic cats get stuck in trees. They can’t descend head-first and they’re wary of descending tail-first, which makes them vulnerable. Marbled cats have unusually flexible claws that enable them to descend head-first with ease, so they don’t balk at climbing. Their large paws keep them sure-footed on tree limbs and they’re confident off the ground.
In 2011, a trail camera in Indonesia was tripped by a marbled cat, finally giving us a close-up view:
The striking felines are sometimes called “miniature clouded leopards,” and you can clearly see why.
The species is native to the eastern Himalayas, mostly in Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and tiny corners of China and India, as well as countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. They’re extremely adaptable and live in a variety of habitats, from the forests of high-elevation mountain slopes to the humid jungles of Indonesia’s Borneo and Sumatra.
Marbled cats are about the same size as domestic cats, but they’ve got incredibly big, fluffy tails that are longer than their own bodies, which serve as formidable counter-weights for their tree-hopping. Their ears are a bit more round than the ears of their domestic cousins. They tend to have larger paws, and they have unique clouded coat patterns that are unlike any breed of domestic feline or close wildcat relatives.
Despite their relatively large natural habitat and the difficulty in pinning down population numbers, conservationists estimate there are fewer than 10,000 marbled cats. They’re threatened by the same deforestation by the palm oil industry that has devastated orangutan and clouded leopard habitats, although their strongholds in steep, high-elevation forests are safe for now. Marbled cats are listed as endangered by some authorities and as near-threatened by others, though like all wildlife their numbers are in decline.
Nicholas was orphaned and severely injured as a cub as he and his mother tried to cross a busy highway. He’s settling into his new home, where he will have his own habitat, den and even his own pond.
Nicholas the mountain lion has a beautiful home waiting for him with his own pond, a rock den, a grassy area where he can run around and several other little hideaways where he can enjoy some privacy and naps.
But first the three-year-old puma will have to clear quarantine and become more comfortable with his new surroundings and new caretakers.
“He’s doing really well but he’s still very scared, he’s a very timid cat, so we’re just taking it really slow, day by day and the keepers are taking some quiet time with him,” said Bobbi Brink, the founder of San Diego County-based Lions, Tigers and Bears, Nicholas’ new home.
Nicholas stretches his legs in quarantine as he awaits the move to his own habitat. Credit: Lions, Tigers and Bears
The golden-coated feline with an expressive face has had a tough journey to the 93-acre sanctuary that will be his permanent home.
In 2020 when he was just a cub, Nicholas was following his mother across a busy highway when both were struck by a car. Nicholas was badly injured and his mom was killed in the collision, an unfortunately common fate for members of their species as their longtime habitats are increasingly fragmented by new developments and highways.
Because they require about two years with their mothers to learn how to survive on their own, it’s almost impossible to release orphaned pumas back into the wild. Unlike, say, the orphaned orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra, who can usually be taught to successfully fend for themselves because humans can show them how to physically manipulate their surroundings, there’s no way to teach orphaned pumas how to select prey, stalk, pounce and deliver kill bites.
A sanctuary in northern California provided a home for Nicholas for about three years, but recently went bankrupt, so the staff at Lions, Tigers and Bears secured him, prepared a habitat for him and took on the Herculean task of transporting him to San Diego County.
Nicholas’ case is even more complicated because he has lasting neurological damage from the car crash that killed his mother, including a pronounced head tilt that worsens when he’s scared.
Brink told PITB it’s normal for cats like mountain lions to be spooked by the commotion and uncertainty of a move, as well as leaving everything they know behind. Nicholas is simply obeying his wild instincts, which urge him to be guarded. But he’s got a loving team of caretakers who will work with him, as well as veterinary specialists who are well versed in caring for animals with neurological damage.
“Sometimes it can take (animals like Nicholas) a month, sometimes it can take three months to build up that trust,” Brink said. “His biggest need is he’s very afraid, so we’re gonna have to work around his fear so we don’t scare him more.”
Despite their impressive size, pumas are more closely related to domestic cats than the big cats of the panthera genus. Like their house cat cousins, pumas enjoy tearing up paper and playing with toys. Credit: Lions, Tigers and Bears
While Nicholas will have his own habitat and can keep to himself as much as he likes, recent observations of his secretive species have shown that pumas have “secret social lives,” and Nicholas will have the opportunity to meet and interact with other mountain lions if he’s comfortable with it.
Pumas — which are known by the scientific name puma concolor and are also called mountain lions, cougars, panthers, catamounts, screamers, painters, gato monte and many other names — are among the most adaptable felids in the world and range from the southernmost edge of South America to just over the Canadian border. They’re able to thrive in mountains, tropical regions, deserts, forests, human-adjacent rural areas and even in urban population centers, as the famed “Hollywood Mountain Lion” P-22 did for more than a decade in Los Angeles.
Their ability to adapt has served them well in a changing world, but they’re not immune to the pressures of human expansion.
In California their habitats have been carved up by the state’s busy and deadly highways, leaving the cats in genetically isolated pockets. Pumas who strike out in search of their own ranges are extremely vulnerable to vehicle traffic. P-22 famously crossed several of the world’s busiest highways to reach his eventual home in LA’s Griffith Park, but others like Nicholas and his mom aren’t so lucky.
Solutions like the $90 million Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, currently under construction in Los Angeles County, can connect fragmented ranges and give pumas, coyotes, foxes, deer, rabbits and other animals safe passage. But experts point out that they are just one component in a long-term solution that must include more careful zoning, fences to funnel animals toward safe crossings, and options like tunnels that run under highways, since not all animals will use overpasses.
As planners and wildlife experts figure out new ways to ensure the survival of wildlife in an increasingly crowded, human-dominated world, sanctuaries like Lions, Tigers and Bears play a crucial role by caring for the innocent animals who are injured, displaced and rescued from bad circumstances.
To learn more about Lions, Tigers and Bears or support their ongoing efforts to provide safe, stimulating and comfortable homes for wild animals, visit the non-profit’s site. To receive updates on Nicholas and the other animals at the sanctuary, follow Lions, Tigers and Bears on Instagram and Facebook. Readers who live in the California area can book guided educational tours or visit during one of the sanctuary’s special events. Thanks to Bobbi Brink and Olivia Stafford for allowing PITB to tell Nicholas’ story. All images and videos of Nicholas courtesy of Lions, Tigers and Bears.
Wildlife conservationists should work with cat lovers instead of making enemies of them in the ongoing quest to protect small wildlife from felines. Cat owners, in turn, can show good faith by being more responsible about spaying and neutering, and by keeping their cats indoors.
Wildlife conservationists are worried, and they have a right to be.
In addition to the billions of animals we humans kill every year in our ruthless exploitation of life on this planet, our pet cats have their own separate impact, killing birds and small mammals in significant numbers.
Yet conservationists aren’t making headway with cat lovers, primarily because their approach frequently relies on shaming and drastic, often cruel proposals: Some Australian states are outright culling cats, offering $10 a head for adults and $5 for kittens, for example, while a pair of academics from the Netherlands advocate criminally prosecuting cat owners who let their pets outside combined with a policy of euthanizing millions of cats. Extremists in the US are pushing for similar measures, arguing that TNR (trap, neuter, return) isn’t an effective way of managing cat populations.
Something has to be done, and a few smart conservationists are realizing the accusatory, Richard Dawkins-style of engaging “the enemy” just causes people to withdraw, not to listen and cooperate.
“I get quite sick of the conflict focus of some conservation biologists,” Wayne Linklater, chairman of the environmental studies department at California State, tells New Scientist. “The solutions lie with the people who care most about cats, not with the people who don’t care about them.”
Great. Now there are a few things conservationists should know as they engage with people who care for cats:
Most of us want what you want: We want cat owners to keep their pets inside. Cats aren’t wild animals. They have no “natural habitat” and contrary to misconceptions, they don’t belong outside. They’re not equipped to provide for themselves, and they face dangers from traffic, predators like coyotes and mountain lions, fights with other cats, and perverse humans who kill and torture them for fun. Strays and ferals live short, brutal lives (living to an average of 3.5 years) while indoor cats live 17 years on average. The “cats belong inside” angle is common ground from which to start a dialogue.
Stop repeating bunk studies as fact! The idea that cats are an all-consuming plague on wildlife came about as a result of a handful of studies, yet all but the most recent of them are based on old data and manipulated numbers compiled by people with an agenda. One of the earliest studies, which claimed cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 billion mammals annually, relies so heavily on invented numbers and massaged data that it’s worthless and outright dangerous to informed discourse on the topic, yet it’s repeated as fact by credulous conservationists and the press. Knowing the true scope of the problem is key to understanding whether mitigation efforts really work. Misinformation only sabotages those efforts.
Come get your people: Peter Marra is one of the co-authors of the bunk 2013 Nature Communications study with the above oft-cited numbers, and he’s also the author of the shrill Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer. Marra is an advocate of using taxpayer money to kill millions of cats. He also says that anyone who questions his claims about cats — a group that includes major animal rescues, welfare organizations, and many academics — is tantamount to climate change deniers and tobacco companies that denied for decades that cigarettes have a negative effect on health. Marra’s major contributions amount to sowing misinformation, polarizing the issue and inflaming opinions on both sides. Everything about his behavior indicates he wants to sell books and promote himself, not save wildlife from predatory domestic cats. He should not be taken seriously and his research should not be reported as fact.
Cat lovers are, by definition, animal lovers. They’re people who care about wildlife and domestic animal welfare. It shouldn’t be difficult to engage with them.
At the same time, cat advocates need to purge the crazies out of their ranks as well. Sending death threats to scientists (see the New Scientist link up top) is way out of order, it’s inhuman behavior and it only hurts the legitimacy of our cause.
A good first step toward reconciliation could involve enlisting cat owners in an effort to properly study feline impact on small wildlife, producing reliable data to facilitate a measured, fact-based approach that doesn’t begin and end with the notion that cats are hellspawn.
If all sides engage in good faith, there’s no reason why we can’t protect wildlife and cats.
An ethereal photo shows an Amur tigress scent-marking an ancient tree in Siberia.
A photo of a tigress hugging a tree in Siberia has won the prestigious Wildlife Photo Of The Year from London’s Natural History Museum.
Photographer Sergey Gorshkov beat out almost 50,000 other entrants with his winning photograph, taken in Land of the Leopard National Park, a large reserve for tigers and leopards in Far East Siberia.
Gorshkov set up his camera facing a tree that already had claw marks, signaling that it’s been used as a territorial marker by at least one of more than 30 adult tigers in the park.
Sure enough, a tigress stopped to claw new marks on the tree and rub her scent on it, which is the same behavior we see with house cats when they rub on objects — and people — in the home. Cats have scent glands on their faces and paws which allow them to mark objects with pheromones. It’s a cat’s way of leaving a “sign” saying “This is mine.”
The photo has an ethereal quality, with the tigress and tree illuminated by shafts of sunlight poking through the canopy of the ancient forest.
An announcement from the park’s staff describes the scene:
The photo titled “Hugs” shows the moment in which the rarest Amur tiger hugs a century-old fir to mark the target tree with its scent. Sergey Gorshkov, with the support of professional guides from Land of the Leopard, took a picture using a professional camera with a motion sensor.
“This is a scene like no other, a unique look at an intimate moment deep in a magical forest,” said Rose Kidman Cox, chairwoman of the contest’s jury.
The photo “inspires hope” for the endangered Amur tiger, Cox said. In addition to the 30-plus tigers, Land of the Leopard National Park is also home to at least 10 tiger cubs and almost 100 leopards.
Gorshkov’s photo wasn’t the only feline winner this year. “When mother says run,” a photograph by China’s Shanyan Li, shows a trio of Pallas’ cubs with their mother “on the remote steppes of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in northwest China.” The photograph won in the mammalian behavior category.
A mere three feet away, the tiger looked me in the eye.
The big cats at the Bronx Zoo have had a rough 2020 too.
First the zoo was shut down — along with thousands of other gathering places — due to the novel Coronavirus.
Then a tiger at the zoo got sick and tested positive for COVID-19, marking the first positive test for an animal in North America and the first recorded instance of human-to-tiger transmission. Seven other big cats at the zoo caught the virus, including four tigers and three lions.
Thankfully they recovered and everything — or almost everything — looked normal when I visited this week.
One of the awesome things about the zoo’s Tiger Mountain is that it has a trio of viewing ports that provide a prime view of a small pond where the tigers drink, swim and nap.
This tiger lounged in the distance for a few minutes, then got up and gave us a show.
At one point the tiger came right up to the glass and looked at me:
Standing three feet from a tiger is an experience, glass or no:
Not as terrifying as Buddy’s visage, of course, but still something to behold.
The lions were less welcoming. They were clumped up in the shade of an oak tree, snoozing without so much as a tail flick for motion.
Next was a snow leopard. This guy clearly didn’t deal well with a lot of humans gawking at him, and I could only snap a few shots before he retreated back up a hill in his enclosure, where the angle and brush gave him a measure of cover from human eyes.
I also saw him spinning in a circle repeatedly, a sign of zoochosis. I’m not an animal behaviorist and I’m not qualified to judge the work of the Bronx Zoo’s keepers, who obviously care a great deal for their animals. It’s just a reminder that even the best zoos in the world — with entire teams dedicated to things like enrichment and enclosure design — struggle to keep animals healthy and happy in captivity.
Even though the name of their species sounds like an Italian dessert and they’re often mistaken for baboons, Gelada are old-world monkeys native to the grasslands of Ethiopia.
Geladas are the only primate species that are grazers: Up to 90 percent of their diet consists of grass and grass seeds. They’re easily recognizable by the hourglass-shaped furless patches on their chests, and they’re the only monkeys to form “herds” instead of troops, with an individual herd’s size swelling to more than 1,000 at a time.
When Geladas aren’t eating they’re grooming each other. Allogrooming, or social grooming, doesn’t just help monkeys keep their fur neat and free of parasitic bugs — it’s also a way of maintaining social bonds and reducing tension.
When I visited, I saw a male Gelada grooming a female. Female “heart patches” are usually more pale than their male counterparts, except when they’re in heat. So it’s probable that this scene is a bit of foreplay during mating season:
A female on the rocks nearby. The enclosure features a series of cliffs surrounding central grassland, closely mimicking the species’ native habitat:
This bird got within feet of the path adjacent to its exhibit, and its kind seem to have free reign within the park, as I saw another one hanging out in a wooded area earlier.
I have no idea what kind of bird this is, but he was very vocal and insistent about something:
A group of zebras. I think they were sleeping. These four didn’t move a muscle, and zebras are one of a handful of species who can sleep while standing upright.
A brown bear enjoys the warm weather, which topped out at almost 80 degrees. Another bear was nearby, taking a dip in the pool.
And finally, a friendly reminder to the zoo’s visitors: Wear your masks! The zoo enforces an always-on policy for masks, which I think is a reasonable precaution. While masks may not be strictly necessary while strolling down the wide visitor paths of the zoo, viewing spots at popular exhibits can get crowded, and some of them are partially-enclosed.
Pain In The Bud 