“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.
Before we get into the most important day of the year (according to Bud), I wanted to share that we’ve been watching the wonderful Earth At Night In Color.
The title pretty much sums it up: teams of intrepid videographers went to some of the most remote locations on Earth armed with new camera tech that can peer deep into the night, revealing an entire world we can’t see and colors we don’t have names for.
The result is astonishingly crisp and clear images of the nocturnal world, offering opportunities to see things we’ve never glimpsed.
It might be difficult to belive, but this image was shot at night near the banks of the Amazon with only starlight providing minimal illumination.
One episode, Jaguar Jungle, follows a six-year-old male named Juru whose kingdom is an idyllic stretch of the Amazon River where capybaras frolic and caiman are plentiful.
Serendipitously, the crew also encounters a young female jaguar in heat, following the scent trail of a male and calling out. The resulting courtship is fascinating and in the words of narrator Tom Hiddleston, “surprisingly tender.” It’s exactly the sort of thing that would have been impossible to film with regular or even night vision cameras.
Another episode, Puma Mountain, follows a cub on the cusp of adulthood as she learns to survive in Patagonia. The vistas are remarkable in a virtually untouched land far from human light pollution, where wildlife thrives and the glowing ribbon of the Milky Way straddles the horizons at night.
I appreciated the focus on pumas, who are often overlooked in wildlife documentaries, and Earth At Night is perfect for them since the vast majority of their activity happens in the overnight hours.
The series also has episodes dedicated to lions and cheetahs, so there’s lots here for cat lovers. Other highlights include episodes following African elephants, polar bears and tarsiers, which are liliputian primates that look almost like Jim Henson creations.
Aqua!
I move quite a bit when I’m sleeping, and since Bud literally drapes himself over me, you’d think he’d be used to it. I must have shocked him awake with a sudden movement a few nights ago, because he bolted up, freaked out and yelled “AQUA!”
I busted out laughing despite him catching my leg with a claw when he was startled. Then I rubbed his head to let him know all was well, and we went back to sleep dreaming of oceans.
“Aqua?!?”
The Great Day of Turkey
Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s good to have a day dedicated to being grateful, and I think that’s especially important in an era of hyper-commercialism, when the accidentally fortunate use Instagram to rub their wealth in other people’s faces, dueling billionaires vie for political influence and the adoration of the public, and most people conflate what they have with who they are.
My family has banned talk of politics this year, which I think is the smart and mature thing to do.
As for Bud, he’ll have to endure most of the day on his own before I come home with his favorite food in the universe.
I hope everyone out there has a great Thanksgiving and gets to spend it with family and/or friends.
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 strange footprint may date back as far as 35 million years ago, according to a preliminary analysis.
Before house cats, tigers and lions, before sabretooth cats and their scimitar-toothed relatives, Pseudaelurus (pseudo-cat) stalked the forests and plains of Europe, Asia and North America between eight and 20 million years ago.
Before Pseudaelurus, Proailurus — an animal whose name literally means “before cats” — stalked the Earth beginning 30 million years in the past.
Proailurus was thought to be the earliest true feliform ancestor, but now there may be evidence of a felid or feliform animal that predates both Proailurus and Pseudaelurus. Feliform is a term that encompasses cat-like creatures both extinct and extant, from familiar felines to civets and mongoose.
Deep in South India’s Nallamala Forest, near one of the country’s largest tiger reserves, members of the aboriginal Chenchu tribe found a fossil that could put the cat lineage back even further.
The fossil is well-preserved and clearly defined, made by an animal whose paw was about the size of an adult man’s hand. It bears a striking resemblance to tiger pug marks, but perhaps the most striking feature is its three toes.
The recently discovered fossil. Credit: Times of India
“Based on the distinctive characteristics of the sandstone, identified as the Cuddapah subgroup Quartzitic sandstone, the estimated rock’s age is approximately 35 million years,” archaeologist Arun Vasireddy told the Times of India. “It was around this time that sandstones were formed and it is likely that the animal would have cast its prints.”
Biologists have had to reshuffle their picture of felid lineage many times over the past century and a half as new discoveries uncover previously unknown species of cats and cat-like creatures. Since they first appeared, cats have taken hundreds of different forms with significant variations in size, appearance, hunting methods and preferred terrain.
The experts aren’t popping the champagne yet. There’s a lot more work to do before they can declare a newly-discovered species or even offer more than educated guesses about its niche and appearance.
Nallamala Forest may yet hold more secrets, and research teams will look for additional prints as well as potential remains. It’s a process that will unfold over years and decades, perhaps even longer.
Still, it’s a tantalizing clue about the past and the origin of some of Earth’s most iconic animals.
In the meantime, Vasireddy said, “nothing can be said clearly until further research.”
A reconstruction of Homotherium, a scimitar-tooth cat that first appeared about four million years ago. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Styriofelis lorteti predates modern pantherine cats and was the size of a small leopard. Credit: Spanish National Research Council and the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid
The recently-discovered fossil compared to a man’s foot. Credit: Times of India
Roadside zoos persist despite recent law changes, but even the best zoos fail to provide adequate facilities and enrichment for big cats, the report found.
The Amur tigress at Bearsdley Zoo is the lone occupant of her enclosure, which is large by the zoo’s standards, outfitted with a pool, toys and other enrichment, but small compared to what her natural range would be.
When I visited last summer, I spent the better part of an hour watching her pace the perimeter of her enclosure, walking in an endless loop as if in a daze, never stopping, altering her stride or reacting to anything.
But what made me realize how bad captivity really is for big cats was what I saw at the Smithsonian National Zoo, a well-funded world class facility. The tigers there have two outdoor enclosures with a topographic design: they’re vertical spaces separated into tiers, with large trees and narrow “caves” for shelter from the elements. Both enclosures are surrounded by wide moats that ring the perimeter just inside the security fencing.
One of two similar Bengal tiger habitats in the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington. Credit: ZooChat
It was feeding time on a hot summer day. Lionesses chowed down on large slabs of meat and licked blocks of ice, but the lone male tiger next door was pacing in a circle. He paced and paced, covering the same 10 to 12 feet, ignoring his food. I watched him for a long time. His behavior was a clear sign of zoochosis.
If a tiger in a national accredited zoo — where an entire team of keepers and caretakers is responsible for enrichment and welfare — suffers from clear signs of captivity-induced distress, what chance do tigers in other facilities have?
When we think of big cats suffering in captivity, we think of the roadside zoos where the Joe Exotics and Doc Antles of the world exploit them for financial gain, drug them, force them to take selfies with visitors and keep them in cruel conditions. But a new report from Born Free USA goes beyond roadside zoos and says big cat arrangements, even in the best zoos, are inappropriate, unhealthy and demoralizing for the animals.
“Unable to escape the crowds of humans, unable to follow some of their fundamental urges such as hunting and roaming over large distances, unable to fulfil their social needs – whether that be living solitarily or forming a pride with others – big cats show us their mental anguish by adopting abnormal behaviors,” reads the report [PDF], Clawing at the Cages. “These behaviors, known as stereotypies, manifest in obsessive pacing. Some big cats spend most of their days tracing the same, short, tedious route around their enclosures. This behavior is a recognized sign of stress, and only documented in captive animals.”
A captive jaguar. Credit: Yigithan/Pexels
The wild lives of animals like tigers are fundamentally at odds with the concept of zoos. In the wild, tigers range up to 50 miles in a single day, occupying vast ranges. Male tigers protect their home ranges, their mates and their cubs from other males as well as threats of all sorts.
That sort of lifestyle, which is hard-coded into their DNA, is not compatible with a guest-oriented operation in which habitats are designed primarily to give people the best view of the animals.
Lions might have it slightly better, though that’s arguable. As a social species they can interact with each other and they tend to have larger enclosures, but zoos rarely group animals according to their preferred family units or prides, instead matching individuals according to breeding plans as part of conservation efforts.
Yet even the conservation aspect is iffy, according to Born Free USA. Because of restrictions on “importing” animals and a population that is descended from just a handful of big cats, inbreeding is rampant. There’s a lack of scientific research on the captive zoo-held population, but the authors cite a 1983 study that found “six animals out of the approximately 1,000 Siberian tigers held in zoos in 1983 were responsible for 69.4% of the founder representation of the living population at that time. 70% of the population had a positive inbreeding
coefficient.”
Because little has been done to remedy that genetic bottleneck, “genetic viability remains low, and inbreeding of big cats in zoos can only have increased in the intervening years since these studies,” the report states.
Inbred cats suffer more health problems, don’t live as long and are much more susceptible to birth defects.
A cheetah. Credit: Magda Ehlers/Pexels
Despite the passing of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, Born Free USA’s report notes, roadside zoos still exist, and many of them have simply ignored the new laws because their operators know inspectors are overworked and lack manpower. Years can elapse between inspections, even at roadside zoos operated by serial offenders with long histories of keeping animals in abysmal conditions.
For example, Single Vision of Melrose, Florida — which bills itself as a “conservation” facility — openly flaunts its mistreatment of big cats with enormously popular video content from “Safari Sammie” on Youtube, TikTok and Instagram, despite the fact that it’s been the subject of dozens of violations and has an ignominious record when it comes to the health of its big cats. The facility was charged with 20 violations of animal rights laws in the previous two years, and has had multiple cases of animals dying due to neglect, yet continues to sell “experiences” in which “guests” can interact with heavily sedated tigers, jaguars, cheetahs and other wild cats.
In her videos, “Safari Sammie” — an employee of Single Vision — is routinely seen interacting directly with the apex predators, treating them like house cats and creating dangerous situations.
Other roadside zoos and animal “experience” operators continue to intentionally inbreed big cats to create “exotic” white tigers as well as ligers, tigons and other hybrids that aren’t found in the wild but are big attractions.
Overall, the report found:
Zoos fail to provide adequate environments for big cats, including lack of space, lack of ability to hide from public view, and the regular practice of locking big cats in tiny night quarters during the hours when zoos are
closed. The latter often results in big cats spending the vast majority of their time significantly confined.
Social and behavioral needs are not met in zoos. For example, solitary big cats are often forced to live with conspecifics, and social big cats are prevented from creating natural prides. Big cats are prevented from
hunting live prey – a behavior fundamental to them – while often housed alongside prey animals who also suffer stress from being forced to live near predators.
Inbreeding of big cats has become commonplace due to limited genetic diversity among captive populations, as well as unethical and deliberate inbreeding of color morphs such as white tigers and lions,
resulting in significant health issues for the cats involved.
Due to the inbreeding of big cats in zoos, as well as their habituation to humans, big cats kept in zoos are generally not candidates for release to the wild. As such, extensive and ongoing breeding programs simply serve to ensure that zoos remain “stocked” with these animals.
Monitoring of data on big cats in captivity is incomplete, with significant numbers of individuals disappearing from studbooks – the databases ostensibly responsible for tracking living big cats in captive facilities.
The licensing system intended to implement the Animal Welfare Act in the United States only achieves superficial monitoring of big cats in zoos, due in part to its risk-based assessment protocols as well as lack of meaningful
information in reporting that would allow effective public understanding and external expert oversight.
Despite the introduction of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in the U.S. in early 2023, some facilities continue to engage in dangerous activities with big cats, both in violation of, and in compliance with the new law.
Zoos around the world have killed healthy big cats due to overcrowding and lack of perceived usefulness to breeding programs. Other healthy big cats have been killed when human error or enclosure failure allowed their escape, or when attacked by conspecifics in their enclosures.
Due to all the issues above, and others, the overall health and welfare of big cats is compromised in zoos. This results in high mortality (particularly in infants), and recognizable signs of stress in the form of significant occurrences of stereotypic behaviors.
The report includes detailed anecdotes of typical problems in captive situations involving jaguars, lions, tigers and cheetahs, documents persistent problems with habitat design and security, and outlines loopholes and other problems with existing laws, which still don’t go far enough to ensure some of the world’s most iconic apex predators aren’t exploited and forced to endure lifelong misery.
You can find the report’s landing page, with links to a petition, a summary and the full text here.
