tabby – Pain In The Bud

Beloved Bodega Cat Killed By Autonomous Taxi In San Francisco

In disrupting another industry, AI has moved into a realm where its use has physical consequences.

I’d planned on taking a break and easing up on posts after the glut of cat-related news the past few days, but this story is disturbing, timely, and sadly we’ll almost certainly hear about more of these incidents in the near future.

KitKat, a nine-year-old tabby who called Randa’s Liquor Store in San Francisco’s Mission District home, was killed late Monday night by a vehicle owned by Waymo, an autonomous ride-hailing service.

Witnesses said they saw the Waymo hit the cat and pulled him out from under the self-driving car. They say KitKat was sitting on the sidewalk at the time. It’s not clear if the Waymo vehicle drove up onto the sidewalk or if its bumper was the impact point.

A witness who filed a report with 311 via smartphone said the Waymo vehicle “did not even try to stop.” The car continued on to its next pickup.

Several people rushed the injured tabby to a 24-hour emergency veterinary clinic, but his injuries were too severe and he died five minutes before his human arrived.

KitKat outside Randa’s Market. Credit: Randa’s Market Instagram

KitKat was extremely popular with people in the neighborhood, patrons of the neighboring bar and sandwich shop, and passersby. They described him as a feline who liked to patrol the sidewalk and pop into the bar and sandwich shop to “supervise,” making sure all was well in his little realm.

“Everyone’s heartbroken,” Jessica Chapdelaine, who tends bar next door and lives in an apartment above the liquor store, told Mission Local. “He’s the baby. He was everyone’s best friend and he was just the sweetest boy.”

Waymo didn’t respond to requests for comment by Mission Local, TheSFist and other media. The Google-owned company had not addressed the incident on its website’s press page, nor on its X account despite several users bringing it up, as of Thursday morning.

“You can’t even drive in the dark in normal weather without killing a cat,” one user wrote, while others weren’t nearly as diplomatic.

The San Francisco Standard provides a bit of context on the autonomous vehicle issue in California:

“The state had logged 884 autonomous vehicle collision reports as of Friday, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles (opens in new tab). A dog was struck and killed by a Waymo in Bernal Heights in 2023. A week later, a Labrador survived getting hit by a Cruise self-driving car; the company no longer tests its cars in San Francisco.”

On the other hand, there have been several dramatic incidents involving autonomous vehicles that have successfully avoided collisions with other cars, people and animals, even when given a fraction of a second to respond. In an incident in LA from earlier this year, a home security camera caught footage of a Waymo stopping instantly to avoid a dog that ran out into the street directly in the car’s path:

A human driver almost certainly could not make a safe decision in that time interval, but a machine can confirm there is no car immediately behind it and execute the stop within a few milliseconds.

Still, as more ride hailing services roll out autonomous fleets and expand into more cities — as the major players in the still-developing industry are already doing — this will become more of an issue. Waymo operates fleets in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin (TX) and Atlanta, and plans to roll out its service in Miami and Washington, D.C., in the near future.

The obvious question is whether AI-driven vehicles are safer than cars with people behind the wheel, for drivers and pedestrians. The answer seems to be yes, especially as the technology improves. Machines don’t text while driving, don’t get distracted fiddling with radios and don’t get behind the wheel after drinking. Sensors and software have improved dramatically in just a few years.

But that won’t be enough. There’s a psychological hurdle in giving up control. It’s the same reason why so many people are terrified of flying even though we’re statistically much more likely to die in car collisions. When you’re behind the wheel, you have control over your fate — or the illusion of control, anyway.

A close-up shot of hardware and some of the sensors on the Jaguar I-PACE Waymo autonomous vehicle. Credit: Waymo

Parallel to the questions about safety are concerns about whether any corporation should be permitted to put driverless cars on the road, especially when the companies with the resources to commit to a major venture like this are the familiar Big Tech conglomerates run by the same handful of tech oligarchs.

Should they be allowed to wipe out yet another industry, taking away work from people who drive taxis or for rideshare companies? Do we need the government to step in and place some guiderails on tech that has developed at an unprecedented pace and threatens to upend huge swaths of society? Should we demand a much more robust regulatory process and risk falling behind other countries in the AI race?

These are questions we’ll all have to grapple with, and there are no easy answers.

RIP KitKat.

All images of KitKat credit: Randa’s Market/Instagram

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

Man Takes Beloved Bodega Cat: ‘He Stole A Precious Thing In This Community’

The store’s owner says he’s not interested in having anyone prosecuted and he just wants his cat back.

Another day, another person who decided to steal a cat instead of adopting one of the estimated 3.2 million languishing in shelters and waiting for homes.

This time, a man made off with Antonio, a well-loved bodega cat who was the unofficial mascot of K’Glen Deli and Sari Sari Store in Woodside, Queens. When store owner Glen Alagasi couldn’t find Antonio and the tabby failed to show up for meal time, Alagasi panicked.

Sure enough, footage from security cameras showed a man picking Antonio up right in front of the store’s entrance and walking away earlier that day, on the afternoon of Aug. 2. As the man walked off, Antonio managed to squirm out of his hands and was trying to get back to the bodega. The man scooped him up again and Antonio was last seen in his arms as they headed toward Woodside Avenue.

Like others who have had their feline friends taken from them, Alagasi said he’s much more interested in getting his cat back than any form of retribution or punishment.

“We’re not asking for any criminal prosecution,” Alagasi told CBS New York. “Just, we need the cat back. [The thief] stole a precious thing here in this community.”

For people unfamiliar with city living, especially in New York, bodegas are a daily part of life and often the only places to buy food in neighborhoods that are otherwise “grocery deserts.” When you live in Manhattan or a borough, the concept of big-time grocery shopping just doesn’t exist, because chances are you’re hauling your purchases back on foot and ascending stairs or an elevator to your apartment.

Technically, the Department of Health forbids the keeping of cats in bodegas and delis, which almost always have hot food and sandwiches prepared on-site. But the fine for a rat infestation is the same as it is for having a cat, and inspectors can’t be everywhere, so most bodega owners figure it’s better to have a little pal who keeps the rats away than cede territory to rodents, especially in a city that struggles with a perpetual rat problem.

The laws are so openly flouted that there are entire social media accounts dedicated to bodega cats, and the operators don’t bother to hide their cats from customers or the press. If the inspectors are going to come, they’ll come.

Alagasi says he’s lost a friend, and customers like Pia Tracy are used to seeing the little guy every day.

Antonio, who often plays with Tracy’s cat, is “part of our everyday life.”

Tracy says she’s “devastated and heartbroken because I don’t know if he’s okay. We just hope he’s okay.”

Amazon Driver Who Stole Family’s Cat Claims The Feline Ran Off, Amazon Offers To Compensate Family With Stuffed Animal Resembling The Cat

Feefee the cat’s family is deeply frustrated at the lack of answers about their cat and the lack of urgency by the company in trying to locate her after an Amazon delivery driver stole the 13-year-old tabby on July 21.

After a 10-day saga in which tan Amazon driver stole their cat — and Amazon did little to help recover her — a Washington family has been told the feline is gone, and has been offered stuffed animals in her stead.

Feefee the cat was taken from the Ishak family’s driveway in Everett, Washington, on July 21. Footage from a motion-activated security camera shows an Amazon delivery driver crouching in the driveway and petting Feefee, then driving off.

A representative from Amazon’s customer service department confirmed the driver took the cat, but has not helped reunite Feefee and the Ishaks beyond giving the family an email address that law enforcement can use to contact the company.

At first, an Amazon rep told Ray Ishak that the driver — who has not been named by the company — contacted law enforcement to return Feefee. However, neither the Everett Police Department nor the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said they had any record of anyone approaching them about surrendering a cat.

Amazon response — An Amazon customer service representative told the Ishak family that the driver “contacted the police to return your cat.”

Amazon declined to put Ray Ishak in touch with the driver or to tell him the general area where the driver lives, so he might contact local law enforcement there.

The story changed on the morning of July 30, when the sheriff’s office told Ishak that the driver now says Feefee “allegedly escaped a few days ago,” Ray Ishak told PITB.

“They will not tell me where. If I could find out the vicinity I’m pretty sure I could have found the cat,” Ishak said. “I asked the sheriff’s deputies how I can find out the area and the only way is for the driver that stole the cat to tell me.

“I asked them to have her text me or call me from a blocked number or [create] a temporary email, just to tell me where it is because [the police] can’t tell me. It has to come from her and she has refused to do so so far. I fear that [Feefee’s] gone.”

PITB has reached out to Amazon and will update this post if the company responds.

In the meantime, while Amazon will not assist Ishak in trying to recover Feefee himself, a customer service representative asked the Washington man for a description of the 13-year-old tabby “so they can send me a stuffed animal that looks like her,” Ishak told PITB.

“I am serious,” he said, adding that he’s kept copies of the email correspondence with Amazon’s customer service department.

amazonishak2 — An Amazon customer service representative said the company would do “everything we can to investigate” and offered to send stuffed kittens “that look like” Feefee for the family’s grandchildren, who are close to the cat. Credit: Ray Ishak

As we wrote in our earlier post about the incident, Amazon has handled the case as if it were a dispute over a returned item or a delivery problem, even asking Ishak to rate his experience with the company’s customer support immediately after informing him they can’t give him more information. The company has not taken active measures to reunite the Ishak family with their cat, and has refused to provide any information about the driver, even vague information that could help Ishak find Feefee.

“What baffles me is that no one seems to understand that this is a CRIME and we the people who were hurt by this crime are being kept in the dark when we should be able to find her,” the family wrote in response to Amazon’s most recent reply.

The language reflects the deep frustration the family has felt over the incident and the company’s response.

“I just pray we find her alive. I am also tired of getting the brush off, generic emails and no information on our case.”

feefeecamera — An Amazon driver playing with Feefee in the Ishak family’s driveway before driving away with the cat. Credit: Ray Ishak

If the driver is telling the truth and Feefee escaped, finding her quickly is critical. The vast majority of house cats do not do well when forced to fend for themselves, and Feefee has been a member of the Ishak family for 13 years, since she was a kitten.

If the driver is not being truthful and still has the cat, there’s no way for the family to know, and no indication Amazon or law enforcement can be convinced to find out if she’s telling the truth.

As one of our readers wrote in response to our previous story, few things are more heartbreaking than someone stealing a family’s well-loved cat. The saga has been stressful for the Ishak family, and has undoubtedly taken a toll on Feefee, who was taken from the only home she’s ever known. Feefee suffers from asthma, Ray Ishak said, which is why she was allowed to spend time outdoors immediately outside the family’s home.

Ray Ishak said his family was gathered this weekend for his son’s wedding and he had to tell his grandkids, who are particularly close to Feefee, that the cat was elsewhere. That quickly backfired.

“The emotional distress for me having to lie to my grandkids that the cat is safe and fine,” Ishak told KING5, a Seattle NBC affiliate, earlier this week. “Then, watching my granddaughters cry after they found out because they heard us talk about it. It was a double whammy from every single front.”

This is not the first time a delivery driver has stolen a pet, and not the first time an Amazon driver has done so.

In 2021, a driver for Uber-owned Postmates stole an 11-month-old ginger tabby named Simba from a Colorado family’s driveway after delivering a package. Postmates was similarly reticent to help the victims, and the family was never reunited with Simba.
In 2020, a 23-year-old delivery driver stole a Minnesota woman’s cat from outside her home and repeatedly denied taking the 12-year-old tabby until, three months later, he wrote an apologetic letter admitting he nabbed her, felt guilty and tossed her out of his truck later the same day.
In 2022, an Amazon driver stole a Michigan family’s dog. The pup was returned four days later.
Earlier this year, an Amazon driver tried to steal a family’s dog after admiring the pup and telling the family he wanted a puppy of his own. The family caught the driver in the act, and the driver did not escape with the dog.
On July 3, a FedEx driver stole a French bulldog named Tori after delivering a package to her owner’s home in North Carolina. The driver, 44-year-old Kimani Joehan Marshall, left Tori in his truck as he continued making deliveries and the pooch died as temperatures pushed well into the 90s with high humidity. Marshall dumped Tori’s body by the side of a road and the family continued to post missing flyers and search for her until July 10, when police confirmed their dog was dead. Marshall remains in jail on $50,000 bail and faces a felony cruelty to animals charge as well as larceny and possession of stolen property.
Most recently, an Amazon Flex driver allegedly stole an Austin, Texas woman’s dog on July 25. The woman, with help from friends and online sleuths, tracked the driver to his home 50 miles away and was able to recover her dog after confronting the man with evidence — including video from a neighbor’s security camera — showing he’d taken the pup.

That’s not a comprehensive list, and the cases that make the news involve pet thefts caught on camera. Victims who don’t have security or doorbell cameras generally have no recourse, and thefts by delivery drivers won’t make the news unless the victims take their stories to local newspapers or TV news stations, or local reporters discover reports by checking police blotters. The latter situation is becoming increasingly unlikely as so-called “news deserts” — locales not covered by any local media — expand with every newspaper that folds and every round of newsroom layoffs.

We hope someone in Amazon management is paying attention and can help the Ishak family get Feefee back. After all, who wants Amazon drivers delivering packages to their homes if the company allows those drivers to steal from customers with impunity?

As we wrote previously, this isn’t a customer returning a sweater or complaining about a late package, and it shouldn’t be handled that way. Feefee is a living being with emotions, and she’s been part of the Ishak family for 13 years. The very least Amazon can do is have a compassionate and empowered manager call them, apologize profusely, and vow to do everything possible to reunite the family with their well-loved cat.

Top image of an Amazon delivery driver in a Prime van courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Little Buddy And Big Buddy: The Buddies

Human and cat, best buddies.

To celebrate my birthday and Bud’s adoptaversary, the little guy commissioned a portrait of us together. As many of you know, cats think of us as big, slow cats, which is reflected in the resulting painting. I present to you “Buddies: Airbrush on canvas”:

There is a slight inaccuracy, of course: I have gray eyes, not green. If I’m portrayed as a cat, I should probably be an orange tabby as well. And finally, little Buddy should be much more muscular. Perhaps he’s meant to be a kitten in this painting as he was more of a shoulder cat when he was tiny. Other than that, seems pretty accurate!

In truth we don’t really know exactly how cats view us.

We know there’s a parental element, that house cats retain kitten-like qualities for life as they remain in our care. The meow is probably the best example of that, since it mirrors the vocalizations kittens make to their mothers.

We know house cats depend on us physically, psychologically and emotionally. In recent years behavioral scientists have taken studies originally designed for children and modified them for cats, yielding interesting results: House cats who are bonded to their humans behave in ways startlingly similar to humans children.

When we form bonds with them, they draw comfort from our presence and look to us for behavioral cues to determine how they should respond to situations and objects that are new and potentially frightening. Just like kids, cats look to us, and just like kids, they stay calm if we do.

When you treat a cat well, kitty returns that love, trying to comfort you when you’re sick, refusing to leave your side, alerting you to potential trouble.

Bud is super friendly, but he isn’t the cuddliest cat out there. He doesn’t like being hugged or picked up, but he knows that when he pads up to me while purring and sits on my chest or in my lap, I’m never going to force him to stay or subject him to pets he doesn’t want. That’s why he approaches me often and why he feels so relaxed.

It’s probably also why he often wakes me up, purring like an engine, looking for a chin scratch and affirmation that he is indeed a good boy.

Perhaps the biggest complements are Bud grooming my hair and beard, and sleeping on me.

There’s no greater expression of trust between a feline and human than when a cat falls sleep in your lap. Cats are never more vulnerable than when they’re asleep, and sleeping in your lap means your four legged friend feels safe with you and trusts you completely.