Three Legged Cat Picture

This is another picture of my three legged cat, Charlie. It is nothing particularly special except that he is very good at reaching up and grabbing objects because he likes to get into the meerkat position.

You can see him raised up onto two legs grabbing some string I am dangling in front of him with his claws nicely out. Love those claws. Of course one reason why the picture looks a bit strange at first glance is because he has no right foreleg. Being a black cat this is not immediately apparent.

Picture of Beautiful Mountain Lion

This is a camera trap photo of a puma. The photo has been refined a bit by me. For some people it will be just another mountain lion picture but I think it is a bit special.

Camera trap photo by USFWS Headquarters

Firstly, it is "real". This is a wild mountain lion going about his business. I think that adds credibility to a photo over the well composed captive cat photos.

Secondly, you get a very nice sense of the grace and power of the mountain lion. Such a beautiful cat and so sad, for me, that it is still hunted (with dogs). The mountain lion is a very classy jumper, one of the best amongst all the wildcats. You can see where that comes from in the muscular hind quarters.

One day, hopefully before it is extirpated (totally destroyed) in the wild, people will stop shooting at the puma for fun. I know that sentence will annoy the hunters and shooters. However, it is uncivilised to shoot a wild animal for pleasure. We have moved on. Well some of us have. See mountain lion tracks.

Cat Song

You can dance to this one. Debbie is cute. I liked it, which may surprise people. I didn't like the cats dressed up though. But I liked the song and Debbie crying when she says it. I say, "says it" because I think she is talking and some software converts that to a song.

The software is called "Songify it" or is it a YouTube video creator - don't know and don't care. I am an innocent when it comes to this sort of thing.

Debbie really likes cats. She gets emotional about them which I like. It makes life harder though because there are millions of unwanted cats.

Why did the crow provoke the cats?

This is a strange video in which a crow provokes and agitates two cats to the point where they fight each other. There is no doubt that the cats were into a territorial dispute anyway. But it seems to me that the crow pushes them both into fighting sooner and more viciously. These cats certainly fought hard and risked serious injury. The black cat is bigger and won the fight. We don't know what happened to the red cat. He may have been hurt.

An animal only does something if it is to his or her advantage. So what advantage is there in having two cats fight over territory? I can think of only one right now having just seen the video.

Cats attack birds as a prey item, as food. If there are two cats in one area the crow has two predators to deal with. If they fight each other, one cat wins and the other leaves the territory leaving one predator for the crow. The crow has an easier life on the assumption that he stays in the area which might be the case as he probably has a source of food there.

Crows are very smart animals and I would have thought that that sort of reasoning is within his or her capabilities.

Declawing Cats In The UK

Although declawing of domestic cats has never been on the agenda in the UK (even before the recent introduction of the Animal Welfare Act 2006), the declawing of wildcats in zoos in the UK seems to have been carried out on occasion.

I am referring to the declawing of lions and tigers at a British big cat sanctuary, Kamo's Zion Wildlife Gardens. This happened some time ago now; sometime, in fact, between 2000 and 2008. The person in charge of the park during that time was Craig Busch. It seems that he was responsible for ordering the declawing operations.

The declawing resulted in two lions being injured because they could not grip on slippery surfaces and in England in the winter there will be a lot of slippery surfaces. These lions had fallen off boxes onto hard surfaced it appears.

Also the declawing operation had left some cats in obvious discomfort - their gait was incorrect putting strain in other parts of their body - and the others, although looking OK, were assessed as being at risk of developing potential problems in the future due to the declawing.

The park was seeking funds to get the well known American vet Dr Jennifer Conrad to do the six hour corrective surgery. Obviously you can't put the claws back on but you can repair damage done during the declaw operation. The repair work should leave the big cats better able to walk and grip properly.

This little story highlights two things: declawing happened in the UK and it causes unforeseen health problems. Craig Busch should be ashamed of himself.