Risking your life to save animals is one of the most heroic things you can do. Examples.

The title is so true and there are many saintly people who do it. They are still very rare individuals. They are the kind of people who raise my spirits and make me believe that there is hope for us all. Sometimes though I am pessimistic about things including what I see as a breakdown in societal norms.

This video below, which is embedded here (and may therefore one day stop working), starts off with an animal with which I am very familiar; the kitten. A little ginger tabby kitten and therefore male was sat in the middle of road with fast moving traffic. How the hell did he get there? There is only one plausible answer: he was chucked away from a car. 

A lot of people throw their kittens away on the road which achieves the opposite for me in terms of my morale and feelings about humanity.

Anyway the man in the video spotted the kitten and stopped about 100 years beyond him. He raced back endangering himself and his car. He took a risk in doing it and saved the kitten's life I'd say as this kitten was bang in the middle of the highway. He was about to be hit.

I think the man who rescued him drove over the kitten but his tires missed him.

This effort is followed by some others, equally impressive.

The police officer puts a seat belt around the deer that he rescued from beside the road. The deer must have been hit and we have no idea if it made it. It does not look hopeful in the video which is all the more reason to praise the officer for trying. The brilliance of true animal rescue: giving without obvious reward. There is a reward though: the satisfaction that you did the right thing. Good for one's self-esteem that is.

@bicharada34 #animaisselvagens #animals #animais #animaisnotiktok #salvandoanimales #animaisfofinhos #vidaselvagem #foryou ♬ som original - bicharada

This is why cat adopters should always adopt from a rescue center and not purchase from a breeder. In doing that they are playing their part in cat rescue; saving lives. There is an instant boost to the bond between cat and person under these circumstances.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

An example of why people don't stop their car when they hit a cat on the road

Recently I wrote an article about the reasons why people don't stop their car when they hit a cat on the road. And nearly everybody doesn't stop in my opinion. There's no statistics on this so I can't make that statement with absolute confidence but common sense and my gut feel tell me that I am correct.

The reason is that people just don't value cats enough to warrant stopping and disrupting their day. And it will be a disruption because you've got to check the cat which is going to be very upsetting indeed to a lot of people if there are severe injuries. 

You don't know what you're going to see and what you are going to need to do which will probably mean finding out where a veterinarian is and taking the cat to the vet for a check up and possibly to identify the owner through a microchip.

All this takes time and in the story from the Isle of Man, a woman was going to work in her car when she hit a cat at 8:30 in the morning. She didn't stop because she was going to work she said although she added that she was very upset.

Fortunately a good Samaritan saw the accident or saw the cat in the middle-of-the-road and checked the cat which was brave of him or her and found that the cat was concussed but otherwise healthy (damn lucky). They took the cat to a vet the following day.

The cat was placed at an SPCA and then on adoption page on Facebook where the owner spotted their cat and, greatly relieved, was able to be reunited. The cat was semi-feral and therefore this was a very loose relationship between owner and cat. But the ending was happy and this little article is about the reason why we don't normally stop.

There's been a lot of discussion in the UK about making it a legal obligation to stop when you hit a cat on the road which is the case for dogs (click for the UK reasons for the difference). Yes, there's a difference between dogs and cats in the UK when you hit them with a car. And this law is out of date and is based upon the fact that the dog is a working animal much like a goat or horse. This is not entirely true these days because dogs are companions just like cats.

The government doesn't want to introduce a law which would require primary legislation and therefore debates because it would take too long and it would clog up the legislature. They've got more important things to do (the cat devalued again). 

And they argue that there are enough protections currently in place for people to find out who owns the cat that they hit. I'm afraid it doesn't work.

The declared reason online why the government won't introduce laws to make it obligatory is because the proposed law would be to difficult to enforce. I get that but then if it would be difficult to enforce the same applies to dogs so that argument doesn't wash for me.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Jamie Lynn Spears blames Tesla cars for killing her cats!

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is hardly a story worth repeating but it is interesting in a way that Britney Spears's sister won't want to read about. Her name is Jamie Lynn Spears and she has accused Tesla EV cars in particular of killing her cats. Note that it is in the plural and therefore more than one cat of hers has been killed by a Tesla car.

Jamie Lynn Spears is a cat owner and she lets then go outside where more than one has been hit by EVs. Image credit: see base of page.

She is basically blaming Elon Musk who I am sure is totally disinterested in this.

Jamie Lynn, 32, claims that her beloved pets (note once again that it's in the plural) are being killed by Teslas because the cats can't hear the cars coming.

Tough but realistic comment: if you've lost one cat in a road traffic accident concerning a Tesla car, I don't think you should let your other cat outside or you should take some steps to protect your cat. It appears to me that she lives on a road which is not quiet and where there is a possibility that an outdoor cat can be hit by a car. You take measures to stop that happening which doesn't seem to be the case for Jamie Lynn.

I have read similar stories about cat owners complaining about road traffic killing their cats. The solution is in the hands of the owner. Don't blame cars or roads. Don't try and deflect the blame as it all comes back to the owner.

She wrote on social media:

"We have now lost — I don’t want to tell you how many cats — because they don’t hear the Tesla crank and unfortunate things happen and it’s really devastating and tragic for everyone involved. Elon Musk, let’s figure this out. You owe me a couple cats.”

I don't think the problem is with the quietness of EVs but with allowing cats to walk onto the road. Personally, I don't have a problem with the quietness of electric vehicles. They do in fact make a sound. And you have the sound of the tyres on the road which can be quite pronounced. There's no question that you can hear an electric vehicle coming.

Despite that, I'm told that as of 2020 regulations in America mean that electric vehicles have to emit sounds louder than a certain decibel level which is about the level of a washing machine. I don't know if that's true and if it is I think it's silly because one advantage of an EV is that it is quiet. Why take that away with some artificial sound box tucked underneath the dashboard? I just don't get that at all.

The bigger issue on electric vehicles is that the insurance on them is rising rapidly to unsustainable levels because, the insurance companies argue, that repair of electric vehicles is very expensive because the batteries are very expensive to replace. The cost of repairing electric vehicles is pushing up insurance policies across the board but particularly for EVs.

This will curtail the purchase of electric vehicles which, indirectly, will help Jamie Lynn because they'll be more diesels and petrol-engined cars on the road pretty soon if this electric vehicle crisis continues.

On the upside it is nice to know that Jamie Lynn likes cats. Shame she is an irresponsible cat owner.

Image credit: By NickRewind - Jamie Lynn Spears Talks NEW Zoey 102 Movie ☀️ #Shorts NickRewind, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136214583

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cat killed on road after parents screwed up when cat-sitting for daughter

This is not Kylo but another tuxedo cat. Image: MikeB.

I want to ask the readers (not many I guess!) who they think is most at fault in this story. I'll say right away that I'd apportion blame at 50:50. What do you think?

Here is the story:

In America, a young woman (26) with a full-time indoors tuxedo cat, Kylo, asked her parents to take care of her cat while she moved to a new state to live with her husband. She gave her parents strict instructions that Kylo was an indoor cat because her previous cats had been indoor/outdoor cats who'd come to early, unnatural deaths such as being poisoned and a hit and run.

Her parents agreed. But they had three dogs and liked to keep the backdoor open! Not good and I guess she might have foreseen what was going to happen and it did.

Kylo escaped the home and was hit by a car outside and killed. Her father telephoned her to inform her that her cat had been killed and she yelled at him: "I told you to keep him inside!". His response was, "Oh stop, it's just a cat". Not good.

This made things worse. She'd had begged her parents to keep Kylo inside but despite their promises they failed to respect her decision. The parents said that Kylo was curious and hinted at that they wanted him to satisfy his curiosity.

"I constantly told them 'no, Kylo is an indoor cat, keep him inside'. I begged and begged them to respect my decision with my cat and I had thought they had…I received a phone call from my father saying that Kylo was hit by a car and killed today. In the midst of sobbing and yelling at my dad, 'I TOLD YOU TO KEEP HIM INSIDE!!' my dad said 'oh stop… it's just a cat' so I promptly hung up on him and immediately called my best friend (26f)."

Comment: Not good enough. The parents failed her terribly. It highlights the problems of getting relatives to cat sit. It is very risky. There is a huge responsibility on the cat sitter to protect the cat or cats. I don't think they realise the responsibility sometimes. But the cat's owner failed her cat too I am afraid. She has ultimate responsibility for her cat. She made the decision to leave him with her parents who apparently were unsuitable and not up to the task.

One issue is failing to recognise the value of a domestic cat. The father clearly didn't. For him it was 'only a cat' which is sure to lead to carelessness.

The response from the daughter is to ban her parents from baby-sitting which is sad but understandable.

The daughter said:

"After a good cry and a stern talking, my husband and I decided to keep my parents from watching their grandchildren without us there, no matter the circumstances. If they can't respect my one wish for my cat, what is to say they will respect my wishes for my children? So, am I the a**hole for not allowing my parents the chance to babysit their grandchildren?"

The source of the story is Reddit.com. 

Petition making it a legal requirement for drivers to stop and report collisions with cats will fail

A petition on the UK government website has 102,436 signatures. It was open for 6 months. Its demand is to "Make it a legal requirement for drivers to stop & report collisions with cats". This is a campaign that has been going on for a long time (since at least 2014). It is a good campaign. Drivers have to stop and report accidents with other animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. 

Image: MikeB

Because it reached over 100k signatures it has to be debated in the House of Commons. It will be next week. But it is a waste of time because the government will not enact new legislation to comply with the petition. Their reason?

Here is the Department of Transport response on the petition website:

"The Government has no plans to make it an offence to drive off after hitting a cat. A focus for this Government is to make roads safer for all users, which will in turn reduce the risk to all animals. 

Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver is required to stop and report an accident involving specified animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. This requirement arises from their status as working animals rather than as domestic pets. To introduce such a measure within the provision of section 170 would require primary legislation. 

Having a law making it a requirement to report road accidents involving cats would be very difficult to enforce and we have reservations about the difference it would make to the behaviour of drivers, who are aware that they have run over a cat and do not report it. 

Although there is no obligation to report all animal deaths on roads, Rule 286 of The Highway Code advises drivers to report any accident involving an animal to the police, and if possible, they should make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals and advise them of the situation. 

The Government recognises how distressing it can be for someone to lose a pet, especially without knowing what has happened. We committed in our Manifesto, and reaffirmed in our Action Plan for Animal Welfare, to introducing compulsory cat microchipping and plan to introduce the necessary legislation this year. We understand that the vast majority of local authorities now have arrangements in place to scan dead cats and dogs found by them and we will continue working with them and other stakeholders to develop and promote best practice in this area. " - Department for Transport.

That was a massive campaign by some great women to plug a loophole in UK legislation which is unfair on domestic cats. 

The underlying reason why the government won't make new law on this is because they are too busy trying to fix so many profound problems in what many people believe is a broken Britain.

Emily Brown from Hayle, UK, has never seen so many cats killed by motorists

NEWS AND VIEWS - HAYLE, UK: Emily Brown is giving up on the human race. She has never seen so many cats killed on the roads in her seaside town. She is complaining about the motorists on the website of the newspaper Cornwall Live. And she is right to complain. She says the town is plagued by hit-and-run drivers killing people's companion cats. 

Emily Brown. Photo provided by her.

They don't stop, she says. She was taught to treat others properly and decently and can't understand why drivers just carry on. A 20 mph speed limit is in operation in her town, as I understand it. But this doesn't seem to make any difference in terms of killing pets on the road.

Tourist town

It seems that the problem was caused, or certainly exacerbated, by a huge influx of tourists when the doors unlocked when the pandemic eased back and the government allowed freedom of movement. Emily Brown said:

"The world has gone mad with cars everywhere. The traffic has been bad anyway because of summer and all the tourists. I think we need a 20 is Plenty campaign here in Hayle."

She is concerned that one day a child will be hit and there have been some near misses. In the photograph she is standing on Trevassack Hill where an incident occurred. And she has regularly read about cats being killed on the road on Queensway which is a new estate near the Copper House public house.

Cats and kittens run over on the road are left where they died and she said that she is forced to deal with them. Recently she called one of her friends to help move a cat because she didn't want children to see the dead animal on the road. She has seen posts about missing cats in Hayle weekly and sometimes daily.

She also said:

"It makes me feel like I'm losing faith in humankind".

I completely understand that. She believes that at least drivers could do something and pick up the animals and try to find the owner or take the cat to a veterinarian to let them scan a microchip to find the owner. She has contacted the local police and local authority about providing road signage to tell people to slow down. Clearly drivers are not adhering to the 20 mph speed limit. I can understand that as well I'm afraid. The 20 mph speed limit is too slow for many people. They regularly break it.

It seems that the local authority will not put up new signage because of the cost. She said: "It's all to do with money, but that shouldn't be an excuse."

The other side of the coin

The other side of the coin needs to be mentioned: cat owners allowing their pets to roam freely over dangerous roads. If cat owners live near active roads they should keep their cat inside. Although the idea of full-time indoor cats is catching on in the UK there is resistance to it. The default is to let cats go outside unsupervised. There are two sides to this problem. We can't put all the blame on car drivers. Cat owners have a responsibility to keep their cats safe.