Cat Smarter Than Some People?

I think it is fair to say that this cat is smarter in some ways than some of the people who comment on her trick of walking down the side of a fridge.

A lot of the comments to the video on YouTube refer to "suction feet" and "spider cat" and that sort of stuff. They haven't figured out how she does this but she has and she does it instinctively.

It is clear from the beginning that Piggy is using the wall adjacent to the fridge to good advantage. She places her back against the wall as soon as she starts to descend.

She uses her strong legs to press her back hard against the wall. This creates a tension throughout her body and puts pressure on her paws that are in contact with the fridge.

This allows her to walk down the fridge and even stop half way and have a chat. You can see the same technique used by mountaineers climbing steep rock faces. They sometimes use indentations that are in the shape of a column of rock to shimmy up the mountain.

Here is the video:

For me this confirms what I already know. Cats are pretty smart. They can understand a bit of simple physics. I can think of a similar sort of thought process with my cat Charlie. He has three legs so he has to figure out how to do things that other cats take for granted.

One of the difficulties that he has is jumping down because his single front leg can't take the pressure on landing. He twists his body as he jumping down and lands on all three legs simultaneously. Neat solution. I have also seen him jump from a wall onto a sloping tree and then to the ground to get off the wall. He used the tree in an elegant way as a staging post in the jump down. These things come instinctively to him which makes me think that there is some pretty sharp thought processes going on.

THE SPONSORED WALK

By Barbara (UK)

You can see the four earlier posts on Barbara's walk by clicking on this link.

Click on this to see a large format version.
Poster by Ruth AKA Kattaddorra

This is the final installment of the series of four written by my sister Ruth ‘Sharing the fun of fund raising for needy cats’.
 
The day of the walk dawned and it was pouring down! The forecast had said rain to start with but clearing…it didn’t clear! Anyway I got ready with the help of my dear (patient) sister and we both went up to my work so Ruth could take some photos and she’d said she would go over the road to a shop and get me a Cats Protection balloon filled with helium to attach to the pushchair. As it turned out she got two and free of charge as the shop owner said it was to help a charity, so there was another kind soul.

My manager Jenette was at work already as she was manning the office in my absence, she hooted with laughter when she saw me but said I looked good, just not like me, she also donated £10 which was lovely. Then we waited for Julee to arrive, she had to travel about 45 minutes to get to us and got lost at the very end, after phoning for directions she was soon with us and then changed into her doggy costume. She’d made it herself and admitted she’s no seamstress, so that made two of us, but she had to be stapled into her suit as she hadn’t had time to put a zip in!

Finally we were ready and Ruth took our photos indoors and outside, once the photos were done we’d had to cover the pusschair with plastic as it was raining so heavily. Then we said cheerio to Ruth and Jenette and set off on our journey. We made our way through the shops, knocked on the window of the hairdressers that Ruth and I go to and they came out to see us and started our collecting boxes off, despite having already sponsored us.
On we went, past the cemetery, past the last of the houses and onto the bypass, still pouring rain. We got a couple of beeps on car horns and a few waves but didn’t meet anyone except two horses looking over a gate and they were scared of us, or maybe the balloons. Eventually we came to the end of the bypass and made our way to the Bishop Auckland branch of Funeralcare where we had a quick cuppa and set off again for the last bit of the walk, down into the town centre where we positioned ourselves outside of the shopping arcade, dripping wet but still in good spirits.

Most people ignored us! They were of course huddled up in their coats and covered by brollies then Julee hit on the idea of handing the little CP furry stickers out to kids, which made some of the mothers feel obliged to stop and put some coppers in our boxes, one or two cat lovers came along to have cat conversations with but not as many as we expected, purely due to the rotten weather.

We stood for about an hour and a half and we had a laugh but really we were wasting our time so we phoned my manager and she came to pick us up and bring us back home, my feet were squelching in my shoes and my shoulders soaked through so I was glad to call it a day. We’d only collected £23.42 in our boxes.

I really enjoyed it, despite the soaking, I’d thought the walk would be hard going but it flew over, it would have been nice to have some sunshine but it wasn’t to be.

We haven’t got all the sponsor money in yet so I can’t give the total amount raised until we do but I know that each of the two charities, Cats Protection Wear Valley & Darlington, and Hope Animal Shelter will get £200 each at the very least plus the £100 each from the Co-operative Booster Fund.

I can’t believe I’ll get away with no aches and pains from today, but it was so, so worth it for the sake of cats!

Thank you very much to everyone who sponsored me for the walk and everyone who has been interested in the event. I’ll post the final total as a comment on this article as soon as possible.

Meeting the Asiatic Lions of Gir Forest

By Rudolph.A.Furtado (Mumbai, India).

I have been on a four day "Lion Safari Camp" with B.N.H.S (Bombay Natural History Society) tour group  between Wednesday (16-5-2012) to Saturday (19-5-2012) to the Gir forests of Gujarat in India.

The Gir Forest is home to the last species of the Asiatic lion in the world numbering only about 400 approx. It is situated in the north-west of India (see map).

We visited the "Gir National Park" on 5 different occasions on 3 different days, lucky to spot the rare elusive lion. On the last day we saw an entire pride of 6 lions, sitting across our jeep trek road, approx 50 meters away from us. It was a life scene straight out of a "National Geographic Documentary".

Pride of lions walking in a single file

A young lion spotted in the undergrowth bushes of Gir Forest

The pride sighted on Friday (18-5-2012). A rare situation

Doesn't cat Matata my Persian cat resemble a miniature lion?

What baffled and surprised me was the behaviour of these totally wild lions towards the Guards (Wild-Life rangers) of the park. When a lion was spotted in the forest undergrowth by a guard  the tourist jeeps were allowed to approach closer to the lion for photography and viewing. We spotted a lion on all 3 different days of a 3 hour safari ride inside the jungle and every time a forest ranger kept watch on the tourists and the lion.

These guards were familiar to the lions akin to our house-hold cats, hence allowed the guards to approach them on foot and a ordinary wooden baton within a 50 meters distance.

Remember, these are genuine wild forest lions that prey on other jungle species for survival including the nomadic Maldhari's tribal cattle. Yet these same lions have never ever attacked a forest ranger, very strange and also demonstrates that all wild species are basically scared of humans.

On the last day we spotted a pride of 6 lions  relaxing on a mound, later walking in a file alongside the tourist road. The pride was led by a matriarch lioness and there were 3 cubs, a juvenile male lion and another mature lioness.

They resembled a mother cat with her kittens, reminding me of my own cats back home in Mumbai. For the first time in my life I got to observe natural wild lions and realized that our small house-hold cats mimic the behaviour of the "Big Cats".

Read my blog " The Last Asiatic Lion in Gir Forest":-

http://delhionasolobackpackersbudgettour.blogspot.in/

Rudolph.A.Furtado

USDA Too Slow to Shut Down Dodgy Zoos

Great Cats of Indiana has been closed. Hurrah! It took about ten years to do it. In the meantime the great cats inside were turned into cats that weren't so great; just depressed, underweight tigers and lions with medical problems, and in poor health and condition.

I have written about the dodgy private zoos of America before. There have been some high profile cases, which have resulted in deaths.

Lion at Great Cats of Indiana - I don't the name of the photographer, sorry.

Apparently the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had filed a complaint about Great Cats of Indiana in 2007 and there have been breaches of regulations going back to 2002. A court application was filed by the USDA, as I understand it, in 2007 but the place was still open until now.

Earlier inspections revealed negligent medical treatment of a cougar, leopard and lion. For example, the cougar had half a tail and a bloody open would where it had been severed.

I am informed that the USDA often make cursory inspections of private zoos that are poorly managed to avoid having to report animal abuse as it reflects badly on the them. Also it takes at least 6 years normally for cases to be heard at court (src: Big Cat Rescue).

Then recently the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Law Enforcement received a complaint about the Great Cats of Indiana. They investigated on May 23rd. Corporal Todd Pekny went around to the place and saw emaciated animals in very poor conditions, which demonstrated neglect by the director of the place Rob Craig.

On May 29th they removed seven cats from the facility and they are now at a undisclosed USDA facility.

There it is. Neglect by a private zoo keeper and a government department that might also be accused of neglect. The losers? Of course it has to be cats.

The Crow and the Bengal Cat

This happened about two hours ago, in London, in my communal garden and in a neighbour's garden. It is a slice of cruel natural life.

Daniel

A young crow was attacked by an F3 Bengal cat called Daniel when he was out in the garden under the supervision of his caretaker.

The crow escaped from Daniel and managed to get into a neigbouring garden. A while later there was an enormous commotion. Crows and magpies were circling around and squawking feverishly. This went and on until I went out to investigate.

I looked over the wall into my neighbour's garden. I saw the young crow that had escaped from Daniel on the ground, wings outstretched and on his back.

On top of him was another crow who was stabbing his beak into the other crow's neck and head. The crow was deliberately killing the other bird.

As I looked over the wall the attacking crow jumped off and flew away. The attacked crow flapped both wings gently and died.

The squawking and screaming stopped. All was quiet.

Was this a deliberate killing of a competitor or potential competitor? And were the other birds looking on and enjoying the whole process like a gladiatorial fight?

Date: 31st May 2012 - Time: 12:05