Little Buddy the Cat told the artist to take “a small amount of artistic license.”
NEW YORK — Big Buddy returned home on Tuesday to find the living room wall adorned with a huge framed portrait depicting a man resembling a viking alongside a massive tiger.
“Buuuuuud!” Big Buddy yelled. “What the hell is this?”
Little Buddy popped up from his spot on the couch, then stretched and yawned.
“Oh that? I had another portrait of us commissioned, you like?”
Big Buddy glowered.
“No, I do not like! You are not a tiger and I am not…a viking warlord or whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.”
Little Buddy casually scratched the couch and shrugged.
“I may have asked the artist to take a small amount of artistic license,” he said, “but I think it’s pretty accurate for the most part.”
Big Buddy sighed.
“Take it down,” he said. “It’s absurd.”
Little Buddy cackled.
“But you haven’t even seen the other one yet!”
“The Buddies II,” painted by feline artist Meowster Hans Holbein. In a very slight exaggeration, Little Buddy the Cat is portrayed as a tiger while Big Buddy the Human is a viking warlord
Update: This is now a conspiracy! Reader M’s cat, Ramses, has commissioned a similar portrait of human and feline:
The days of tiny backyard enclosures for big cats are over.
The passage of the Big Cat Public Safety Act has been a massive win, resulting in the end of the wild cat trade in the US and the cruel practice of taking cubs from their mothers for use in roadside zoo petting attractions.
But there’s another, often-overlooked component of the new law that’s about to result in big changes for captive tigers, jaguars, pumas and other wild cats.
While current “owners” of big cats were grandfathered in under the BCPSA, they have until June 18 to register with the federal government, and with registration comes requirements, inspections and minimum standards of living for the wild felids.
In other words, most of the people who “own” the estimated 20,000 privately held big cats are about to get a rude awakening. The days of tiny makeshift enclosures in backyards are over, as is the practice of keeping big cats in the home as if they’re domestic felines. (With apologies to Tippi Hedren, who once owned as many as 60 lions and tigers, and at 93 years old still has “13 or 14” big cats, according to her granddaughter, actress Dakota Johnson.)
Tippi Hedren with one of her lions in a vintage LIFE magazine photo. Hedren kept the lion and other big cats as pets in her home.
If people who have possession of big cats don’t register with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they’ll have their animals taken away. Likewise for people who don’t provide adequate enclosures that not only provide enough space, but are built to contain the apex predators.
As a result, sanctuaries are bracing for an influx of tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, cheetahs, snow leopards, clouded leopards and pumas, all of whom are protected under the Big Cat Public Safety Act.
Experts anticipate a significant number of big cat “owners” could try to part with their animals if they can’t or won’t provide adequate enclosures, and the government is already cracking down on people who are trying to sell their “pets.”
A tiger cub named Indy is one of the first to be taken out of private hands and placed in an accredited sanctuary. Indy was recently sold by her original “owner” and the man who purchased her for $25,000 tried to flip her, advertising the cub online.
Authorities moved in and found Indy in a dog kennel in a closet inside the man’s Arizona home. Police, who said they could hear Indy “moaning” from inside the closet, also seized an alligator and a dozen snapping turtles.
Tammy Thies, founder of the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minn. — Indy’s new home — said the cub is lucky she wasn’t confined to the small space for long.
“Many of the cubs we get are suffering from metabolic bone disease, malnutrition, sometimes they have such long confinement that they don’t have use of their back end, so Indy’s a lucky one,” Thies told WKQDS, the local Fox affiliate.
Indy was found in a tiny cage in a man’s closet. Now she’s enjoying sunshine in an accredited sanctuary. Credit: Wild Cat Sanctuary
Indy arrived in May and has adjusted well to her new home in less than a month, according to the sanctuary. A page dedicated to tracking her progress has photographs of her meeting another tiger cub for the first time and playing in the grass.
As the deadline fast approaches, we hope Indy’s story is just one of many, and big cats who have suffered for years in tiny enclosures, under the “care” of people who aren’t qualified to keep them, find their way to accredited sanctuaries so they can live out the rest of their lives in sunshine, feeling grass and earth underneath their paws, with enrichment programs created by professionals who care about their well-being.
The American feline has also been linked to the appearance of crop circles in several US states.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, United Kingdom — The alleged phenomena of big cats stalking the forests and outskirts of villages in the UK turned out to be a hoax this week after authorities caught an American feline planting “evidence” near the A40.
The perpetrator, who goes by the names Buddy the Cat, Kinich Bajo, The Buddinese Tiger and several other monikers, was spotted at the edge of the Forest of Dean using a ladder to create claw marks at roughly tiger height, Detective Inspector Alistair Clarke said.
When he realized he’d been made, the gray tabby cat yelled “Oh shit!” then bolted down the ladder and into the forest, Clarke told reporters.
Police called in a K9 unit, which was able to track a trail of crumbs and discarded turkey bones to a clearing where authorities discovered non-toxic black paint, a fog machine and a copy of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1977 docudrama Pumping Iron.
“It’s our belief that the suspect painted himself black, played prerecorded clips of various big cat roars, then posed menacingly amid the fog for the benefit of locals, mostly drunks stumbling out of local pubs,” Clarke said. “Choosing inveterate drunks as his primary witnesses ensured the resulting smartphone camera footage would be grainy, shaky and inconclusive, adding to the legend and mystique of phantom big cats in the countryside.”
Buddy in costume in late 2022, after parading himself in front of a group of heavily intoxicated people leaving a pub. Credit: PITB
Asked by a reporter whether Buddy’s dedication to weightlifting contributed to locals misidentifying him as a big cat, Clarke shook his head.
“We don’t think so, no,” he said. “Despite his apparent obsession with bulking up and the 63 bottles of protein powder we recovered, the suspect remains a tiny little stinker, which is why he carefully revealed himself only to the thoroughly inebriated.”
Buddy the Cat remained in a local lock-up awaiting extradition back to the US. His human told reporters the feline hadn’t said much about his predicament.
“He’s complained loudly about the food and said the British should be thanking him for increasing tourism to southern England, but other than that he’s kept a lid on his thoughts,” Big Buddy said.
Buddy is seen here patrolling the UK countryside after painting himself black, prompting several calls to the police. Credit: PITB
In the meantime, the South Carolina state police forensics division and detectives from several US police departments have been in contact with UK authorities after similarities emerged between the fake big cat sightings and a series of bizarre crop circles in the US.
“We also found turkey bones and crumbs scattered around the crop circles, but at the time our working theory was that we were dealing with aliens who had a taste for turkey,” said one law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Now we believe our cases may be connected to the UK hoax.”
“Lads, that’s a panther, innit? A panther, wow!” Credit: PITB
Big Cat Rescue will pivot to conservation efforts across the world. Meanwhile, TikTok “influencer” Hasbulla says people are attacking him for “nothing” over a video showing him abusing his cat.
We start with some great news: Big Cat Rescue is shutting down because its services will no longer be needed.
Of course there are still plenty of tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, pumas, lynx and cheetahs in the non-profit sanctuary’s care, but the passing of the Big Cat Public Safety Act has finally put an end to the cruel, abusive and absurd practice of keeping big cats as pets.
The animals will be moved to Turpentine Creek, an accredited animal sanctuary in Arkansas. Big Cat Rescue will continue to fund their care and will sell its existing land in Florida as it transitions to programs to prevent the extinction of big cat species, almost all of whom are critically endangered.
“We have always said that our goal was to ‘put ourselves out of business,’ meaning that there would be no big cats in need of rescue and no need for the sanctuary to exist,” Big Cat Rescue wrote in a memo released this week. “Supporting our cats in larger enclosures at Turpentine Creek, at much lower cost per cat than we incur by continuing to operate Big Cat Rescue, will free up resources to let us do much more to save big cats in the wild.”
Credit: Waldemar/Pexels
The Big Cat Public Safety Act has not only made it illegal to own tigers and other wild cats as pets, it also puts an end to the cub-petting business used by roadside zoos, in which cubs are taken from their mothers as infants so the roadside zoos can charge customers to pet the cubs and pose for photographs with them. While big cat “pet owners” are grandfathered in, many have been rescued and there will be no more pets after the current group dies out.
Influencer Hasbulla says people “are attacking me for nothing” over video in which he abuses cat
Hasbulla, the Russian influencer whose videos have been viewed more than 10 billion times on TikTok, says people are making a big deal over “nothing” in response to a video showing him abusing his cat.
Hasbulla is 20 years old but has a child-like appearance due to a genetic condition.
The 3’4″ social media “star” is known for frequently talking about “acting like a man” and in addition to being an enthusiastic supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine (he’s called Putin “a lion” on several occasions), he holds typical Russian views on the way men are “supposed” to act.
Hasbulla said he was merely disciplining his cat for “misbehaving.”
“Those brothers who think that I was beating the cat, pulled the ear, this and that. I pulled the ear gently,” Hasbulla said in a video accompanying a Twitter post. “I know that people are waiting for the moment, if I write something wrong, to just attack me like this. Like, ‘you do this, you do that’. She was misbehaving and I just pulled the ear and that’s it. I love my cat more than you. If I didn’t love the cat, I wouldn’t have it at home. My most lovely animal is a cat. And when she disobeyed, I scolded her a little. And you are attacking me for nothing.”
Of course anyone with common sense knows cats are not capable of “misbehaving” because they have no concept of what behaving means by human standards, and Hasbulla is being dishonest when he claims he was “gently” disciplining the cat.
In the video, which the Russian voluntarily uploaded, he’s seen grabbing the terrified cat by her ear and yanking violently. The cat runs from him and retreats to a cardboard box where she tries to soothe herself, but Hasbulla follows, scolding her in his native language and hitting her several times on her head and body.
Unfortunately there is little concern for animal rights in Hasbulla’s country, so it’s very unlikely he’ll run afoul of any Russian laws, and even less likely that an animal welfare organization will confiscate the abused feline.
Drug cartel members are infamous for keeping animals as status pets.
Buddy is now on Facebook! Follow him to receive automatic updates, learn exciting new turkey recipes and view exclusive photos of Bud flexing his impressive meowscles!
A cat who until recently belonged to a notorious cartel boss now has a perfectly normal home in Texas after spending the first three years of his life in the notorious CERESO 3 prison in Juarez, Mexico.
The unnamed feline is a hairless Egyptian who was the personal pet of Ernesto Alfredo Piñon de la Cruz, aka “El Nato,” the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel-aligned Los Mexicles gang. Cruz, who lived in a “luxury cell” at CERESO like other drug lords incarcerated there, had the kitty tattooed with a skull flag and the phrase “Hecho en Mexico,” or “Made in Mexico,” a slogan of Los Mexicles.
Cruz and dozens of fellow inmates instigated a riot at CERESO 3 on Jan. 1, leading to the death of 10 prison guards and seven inmates, and the escape of 30 more. He died along with several others in a shoot-out with Mexican authorities three days later and the rest were apprehended.
When Juarez’s governor ordered a thorough sweep of the prison — in which the inmates had become the de facto wardens and guards had lost control of the cell blocks — armed police squads found the forgotten feline, along with thousands of illegal amenities like couches, plasma TVs, video game consoles, air conditioners, heaters, personal laundry machines and even a mechanical bull.
A council of authorities and animal welfare officials from Juarez whittled applications to adopt the cat down to 10 finalists and decided to go with an American adopter in Texas who already has one Egyptian, is well versed in their care, and can offer the tattooed cat a stable environment.
They haven’t identified the adopter, which is probably for the best in a situation where even the police often wear masks to conceal their identities when conducting operations against cartel targets, for fear of retribution if they’re identified.
A so-called “sicario monkey” was incidentally shot in a shoot-out with his cartel member “owner” in June of 2022. Credit: Texcaltitlan police
As the Washington Post notes, stories of “status” animals are common with cartels. In Colombia, hippos acquired decades ago by notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar for his private zoo were allowed to roam free, multiplying to more than 130 today and causing problems in the areas they frequent. And in the summer of 2022, police in a shootout with gangsters killed a member of the notorious La Familia Michoacana cartel along with his pet spider monkey, who wore a tactical vest and a custom camouflage jacket. A Bengal tiger, also illegally acquired by the cartel, was unintentionally set loose in the chaos during the same raid, but was not killed.
Cat in the bag
TSA found another pet cat in the luggage of a traveler, this time at Norfolk Airport in Virginia on the morning of Friday, March 3.
This time the cat’s caretaker did intend to travel with their pet but forgot to take the little one out before putting luggage through an X-ray machine. TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein, who regularly works puns into her announcements about cats found in luggage, had fun with the discovery while also reminding people it’s not a good idea to send pets through X-ray scanners.
“Attention pet owners: Please do not send your pet through the X-ray unit. Cat-astrophic mistake!” Farbstein tweeted Friday.
An image of the cat as it passed through a security scan at Norfolk Airport in Virginia on March 3, 2023. Credit: TSA
Although the cat seems unharmed and the TSA said there’s likely no damage caused by a single trip through the machine, Farbstein said passengers should still be careful.
“The passenger needs to remove the pet from a carry case and carry it through the walk-through metal detector or walk the pet through the metal detector on a leash,” she told CNN. “This is typical of how people travel with small dogs. In the case of a cat, if there is no leash, we strongly recommend that the passenger requests screening in a private screening room” to prevent the cat from freaking out and getting loose in the airport.
What’s your favorite thing about your cat(s)?
Buddy has free reign when it comes to 95 percent of the home and the only times I stop him from doing something are when he might hurt himself, such as trying to steal a piece of food that’ll make him sick or chewing electrical wires.
Thankfully he gives himself away when he’s about to do something he knows he shouldn’t do, making a hilarious vocalization — a trill that sounds like “Hmmm I know I’m not supposed to be doing this, but…” He’s done it since he was a kitten, when he still didn’t get the concept of a litter box and would crap under my bed. (It took almost two weeks, an adjustment in the placement of the litter box, and finally a switch to Dr. Elsey’s Kitten Attract litter before the lightbulb went off in his little head and he got it.)
Years later he still makes the same sound, but when I move to intervene, he immediately flops onto his side and splays his limbs out, a move that says “Hah! I wasn’t gonna do what you thought I was gonna do, and you can’t pick me up!”
He did it to me three times last night and my attempt to dissuade him in a Serious Voice failed spectacularly when I saw Bud flash his “I’m Just An Innocent Widdle Kitty” face at me and broke down laughing.
One of my favorite things about Bud is how he makes me laugh with his antics. The little dude is clever.
What are your favorite things about your cats?
“I’m just a widdle kitty. Totally innocent. Totally didn’t knock a bag of chips all over the floor and pretend I had nothing to do with it.”
Pain In The Bud 