tiger – Page 8 – Pain In The Bud

The Era of Tiger Pets Is Over, Plus: Influencer Defends Hitting Cat, Says People Are Upset Over ‘Nothing’

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.”

photo of tiger and cub lying down on grass — 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 3 169 — 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.

For everyone asking me without the full picture. 🐈❤️ pic.twitter.com/9FMmbaF4zc

— Hasbulla (@Hasbulla_NFT) March 31, 2023

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.

Cartel Prison Cat Gets A Real Home In Texas, Another Feline Found In Airport Luggage

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.

sicariomonkey — 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.

FqUgceQXgAYU3lC — 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?

buddy_layingdownclose — “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.”

WATCH: New Buddy Wildlife Documentary Premieres On PITB!

Watch the premiere of Buddy: Perfect Predator exclusively streaming NOW on PITB!

It’s here!

The long-awaited documentary feature: “Buddy: Perfect Predator” has arrived on PITB.

Join Sir David Cattenborough and his intrepid crew of wildlife videographers as they follow the elusive Buddinese tiger through the dense undergrowth and dangerous terrain of its natural habitat in suburban New York.

Watch never-before-seen footage of the silver-furred Buddy stalking his prey, lounging, sleeping and eating, and follow a tense encounter between the Buddy and a red laser dot.

“I’m extremely proud of the work we’ve done here, and I believe our audience will be thrilled to learn more about this little-known creature, who shares so many qualities with tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards,” Cattenborough said.

“We fell in love with the silver-furred Buddy as we kept our cameras trained on him, and we think our audiences will find him just as charming as we did,” the British naturalist said. “He’s such a good boy!”

(Please ensure your sound is enabled or wear headphones to hear the narration and the atmospheric sounds.)

About this video:

This story was made possible with the use of artificial intelligence tools. To create the images of Sir David Attenborough with Buddy, we used a natural language processing AI trained to output realistic-looking images and Pixlr to refine the images in post. To create the narration, we assembled samples of Attenborough speaking and trained a vocal synthesis AI, based on brand new technology, to mimic Attenborough’s unique pronunciation, cadence and rhythm, then layered the audio with a background of various nature sounds and incidental sounds, such as a tiger roaring.

Just a year ago it would not have been possible to generate images like this or faithfully recreate Attenborough’s famous narrative style, proving AI not only allows users to achieve things that were previously impossible, but has been making major leaps forward in short periods of time.

We believe AI, when properly used, can be a great instrument in the creative toolbox.

Finally, a thank you to Buddy for being a good sport about having cameras in his face. Great job, Bud!

Cattenborough and Buddy — Sir David Cattenborough with Buddy the Cat.

Sir David Cattenborough’s Newest Documentary Reveals The Elusive Silver-Furred Buddy

The naturalist is excited to unveil his most striking documentary yet.

NEW YORK — All those hours trudging through the dense undergrowth of New York living rooms, hoping for a glance of an elusive feline, have finally paid off.

Speaking to reporters about his newest nature special, Sir David Cattenborough said he and his crew spent more than 200 hours in the natural habitat of the silver-furred Buddy.

Also known as the Buddinese tiger, the silver-furred Buddy is “native to the living rooms of New York” and, with his meowscular physique, “is the apex predator of his environment.”

“What a fascinating animal!” Cattenborough exclaimed.

The famous naturalist, conservationist and documentary narrator accompanied a camera crew into the thick jungles amid couches, pillows and carpets, where they observed the silver-furred Buddy at a safe distance as the fierce feline went about sleeping, eating and lounging.

Speaking excitedly in his familiar whimsical cadence, Cattenborough described the documentary crew’s luck in catching the Buddy on a hunt, when he ruthlessly brought down a red laser dot.

“People ask me, ‘Sir David, what makes the Buddy any different from other tigers and lions? Isn’t it basically the same animal?’ While they’re all famously fierce felids who strike fear into the hearts of other creatures, there are differences as well,” Cattenborough explained. “Thanks to the hard work of our dedicated crew, we’re able to bring our audience along as we take the closest look yet at this most elusive and fascinating beast.”

The new documentary, “Buddy: The Perfect Predator,” will be available to stream exclusively on Pain In The Bud, and was made possible by a grant from the Buddinese Foundation for Greater Buddesian Understanding, with additional financial support from the Coalition for Meowscular and Ripped Cats. Look for it this week on PITB!

Cattenborough and Bud — Sir David Cattenborough was able to earn the trust of a silver-furred Buddy.

Study: Jaguars Aren’t As Solitary As We Thought

Using a network of trail cameras, researchers studied jaguars for years and observed behavior that surprised them.

Lions are famously described as the only social big cats, known for living in extended family units called prides and even forming coalitions, which young males sometimes do before they lead their own prides.

But now, thanks to a research team that monitored trail cameras in the Amazon for years, we know that jaguars form their own coalitions, doing things never before seen like patrolling and marking territory together, cooperating on kills and sharing prey. The researchers focused on areas in Brazil’s Pantanal and Venezuela’s Llanos region, both of which provide varied landscapes and water access for the famously water-friendly big cats, who are strong swimmers and prey on aquatic and land animals.

The team pored through more than 7,000 instances of jaguars appearing on the trail cameras, which gave them a look at a range of jaguar behaviors that normally would not be seen.

“It shows the value of having long-term camera tracking, movement ecology data and direct observations through citizen science,” said Allison Devlin, a co-author of the study. “And from that we’re able to see that if you have a relatively stable jaguar population, healthy prey base, and protection for the species, we can start seeing these more natural behaviors, and start understanding some of the interactions that a solitary species might have.”

Jaguar_(Panthera_onca_palustris)_male_Rio_Negro_2 — Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In two cases, coalitions between jaguars lasted for more than seven years, the researchers said. The jaguars were seen cooperating for almost every activity as they went about their daily lives in the jungle.

Not only are the findings remarkable, but they’re a reminder that we’re still woefully ignorant about the only big cat of the Americas, especially compared to lions, tigers and leopards.

“The secret life of jaguars is more complex than previously thought,” Devlin said. “We still have so much to learn about the intricate lives of these secretive wild cats, with findings that can help scientists better conserve these species and the landscapes on which so many plant, animal, and human communities depend for their survival.”

One reason they’re less studied than other big cats is because jaguars are notoriously elusive. People who have spent their lives in and on the periphery of the Amazon say jaguar eyes are on humans from the moment they enter the jungle, watching from the shadows. Yet there are no recorded cases of man-eating jaguars, and conflicts with the feline apex predators and humans are rare, most often relegated to instances where people got too close to jaguar cubs or tried to corner the animals. Jaguars do a lot of watching, but they don’t allow themselves to be seen.

Of course that doesn’t mean they’re cuddly. Jaguars are the third-largest cats in the world, after tigers and lions. They have the strongest bite force of any cat, which allows them to crunch through giant turtle shells and kill in one bite by literally crushing the skulls of their prey with their teeth. (The name jaguar comes from the indigenous yaguar, which means “he who kills with one leap.” No other cat kills the same way.)

Jaguars are also perpetually confused with leopards, their look-alike African cousins, which leads to further uncertainty about their behavior and habits. Aside from being separated by an ocean and living on separate continents, jaguars are heavier and have thicker limbs than leopards, and the biggest give-away is the presence of spots within their rosettes, which leopards do not have.