Ambitious kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer. There are one or two barriers. The keyboard is a little bit too big. If he wants to depressed the "Q" key he walks on the space bar. It gets a bit complicated. He is determined to complete the course.
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| Kitten plans to be Microsoft certified by next summer. Image: MikeB |
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation have a headline, today (Dec 30, 2021), on their website which I would strongly argue is very misleading and deliberately so. They state that hundreds of feral cats have been "removed" from Kangaroo Island in a bid to protect endangered native species.
It is the use of the word "removed" which I believe has been deliberately chosen to paint the authorities in a better light that should be the case. These feral cats have been removed, yes, but they have been removed because they've been killed. This is actually mass slaughter. The authorities are killing feral cats in their many thousands. It has been going on for a long time. However, it is the first time I've seen this kind of language used which distorts the true picture.
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| A deadly feral cat pointing device which delights the Australian authorities even though it kills feral cats in a decidedly inhumane way. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation call this device a trap when it simply is not. |
Of course, as usual they refer to feral cats as 'pests'. It is rather strange because in some countries feral cats are not regarded as pests but as community cats. The Australian viewpoint is a very negative.
How do you decide if an animal is a pest or not? Well, I would argue that they have labelled feral cats as pests because they kill native species. To restate that in a different way: the behaviour of feral cats leads to the death of native species. And so they call them pests.
On that criterion, they would have to call themselves pests because humans in various ways kill more native species than feral cats. You won't find any information or hard facts on it. It is an estimate from me. But that is not a bad thing because all the numbers about the killing of native species by feral cats in Australia are estimates anyway.
There is one particular method of killing feral cats which they delight in. In another example of a distortion of the truth and heavily biased reporting, they describe the Felixer as a "trap". It is not a trap. It is a device which chucks 1080 poison onto passing feral cats. They groom themselves and ingest the poison and die a painful death.
RELATED: Picture of feral cat Doomsday Machine.
There is no way on God's earth that you can call this device a trap. Nothing is trapped. It just kills feral and stray cats. It also kills domestic cats and other animals but it is designed to feral cats only. How effective is it?
They persist in calling this feral cat poison a trap and that it is five times more effective than a standard cage trap. Standard cage traps do not kill the cats. Cage traps are not designed to kill cats but to trap them after which they can be sterilised and returned under a TNR program or in the worst case scenario they can be euthanised in an humane way.
The Felixer simply poisons animals. There is no attempt to kill the cats humanely under this scheme. Whether it is humane or not is entirely irrelevant to these people.
Yes, I am hammering away as usual on what seems to have become a boring topic to some people in America. I'm sorry if you are bored by it. I've become somewhat bored myself. However, I will never stop being disgusted by the operation. Every time I think about it it conjures up images of vulnerable kittens being hauled into veterinary clinics before a veterinarian who has totally lost his moral compass. And he gets the guillotine out and chops off the ends of those toes. Rant continued below the image....
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| Infographic on cat declawing which is self-explanatory. My thanks to Cassandra. |
The poor kitten hasn't got a clue what is going on. He or she is bemused and confused. And he or she will be in chronic pain when they come around from the operation. They will be climbing the walls of their cage moaning in agony. Despite a heavy dose of painkillers. And then if they are lucky they will walk fairly normally for the rest of their lives but they may be one of the many hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of cats who develop complications which have a severe and negative impact upon their lives.
RELATED: Complications Of Declawing.
This operation is unnecessary. It is morally repugnant. It is an aberration and a stain on the veterinary profession in North America. It must stop. There has been piecemeal prohibitions of declawing in some cities in California and New York state banned it recently.
But this is not enough. Piecemeal prohibitions means that millions of kittens are being declawed. It could stop tomorrow in a federal ban but of course there is no chance of that because it is not on the radar of the politicians who run America.
There has been a gradual chipping away of the freedoms of the domestic cat in Australia. Here are some examples. Cats in South Australia's Adelaide Hills are banned from going outside from 8 PM to 7 AM. In Fremantle, Western Australia, domestic cats will be banned from public areas as reported in the Daily Mail.
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| Cat preying on a bird. A major reason why Australians want to confine domestic cats permanently. The photograph is provided by Shutterstock. |
The new rules in Western Australia need to be signed off by the state parliament but if and when passed the legislation will ban domestic cats from footpaths, verges and roads unless on a lead. Cat owners already face a $200 fine if their domestic cat strays onto council bushland. That may be extended to other council land.
It is believed that a nationwide ban on cats being allowed to roam freely is creeping nearer. The objective is to bring cats into line with dogs so that when they go outside they are on a lead. Otherwise they are confined to the home plus a catio or back garden enclosure.
If and when such a federal law exists, either by default through local governments enacting such laws or to a federal law, Australia will be the first country in the world to confine cats in this way.
Canberra already plans to make all new domestic cat companions full-time indoor cats from mid 2022. A violation of that future law will result in the owner facing a $1600 fine.
Residents in Bendigo, Victoria, must now keep their cats within their property or pay a AU$120 fine to reclaim their cat from officials.
One council member of Fremantle, Adin Lang, thinks that one day Australians will look back at this time and scratch their heads and wonder why they allowed domestic cats to go outside so freely.
RELATED: European settlers: the world’s greatest invasive species (not feral cats)?
Australia has a particular problem, as I'm sure you are aware, with feral cats and indeed domestic cats preying on native wildlife particularly small native mammals and marsupials. They hate it although they are myopic in respect of human destruction of wildlife habitat. They like to pass the buck onto the poor cat which was put there by people in the first place. The domestic and therefore feral cat is non-native to Australia. They were brought to the island by settlers. Some domestic cats turned feral and now there are 2 million feral cats in Australia. That's a guess because they don't know the true number.
Although the reasons for confining cats to the home and the backyard are very cogent. Not only is wildlife protected but so is the cat from accidents and other events which can injure the cat such as people poisoning cats or shooting cats.
RELATED: Speaking with an Australian lady about feral cats and Australia’s native species.
I've interviewed an Australian woman for my website (see link above). Like perhaps the majority of Australians she was for the culling of feral cats in order to protect wildlife. Arguably, there has been a gradual indoctrination of Australian citizens by local governments to implant the notion that feral cats need to be killed and domestic cats need to be confined.
One Australian, a cat breeder whose name is Pamela Lanigan of Cats United WA believes that councils and owners can do more to protect native animals. She also believe that more can be done to sterilise domestic cats. She wants low-cost spay and neuter clinics. Arguably, she is hypocritical with the nerve to speak up. She is breeding cats, bringing new domestic cat into the world while there are unwanted cats at shelters waiting to be adopted. I think she would do better to keep quiet.
On her Instagram page, Taylor Swift, lip-syncs to her upbeat song "22" in celebration of her Ragdoll cat, Benjamin Button's 22nd birthday in cat years. As a rough estimate you divide by seven so I'm guessing that Benjamin is about three years old.
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| Taylor Swift celebrates Benjamin Button's birthday by lip syncing her song "22". Montage: MikeB based on screenshots. |
The pop superstar celebrated her 32nd birthday on December 13. She took to her Instagram account on Monday, December 27, to share her video while sitting alongside her adorable purebred cat. Ragdoll cats are particularly attractive, perhaps the most attractive of all purebred cats.
RELATED: Taylor Swift falls in love with Benjamin Button (a Ragdoll kitten ‘purrbox’).
The recording used a New Year's themed filter and the brief clip features swirling confetti and Swift wearing a headband that reads “I’m Feeling 2022".You can watch the video on Instagram by clicking on this link. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CX_inZjhMPY/
It has received 2,539,963 likes ❤. That is because Taylor Swift has 194 million followers on her Instagram pages. It might surprise you to know that that places her 14th in the current list of most followed Instagram celebrities. The top spot is Instagram itself at 453 million followers. The top genuine spot by an individual person is Christian Ronaldo at 381 million followers.
i hate cats, no i hate f**k**g cats is what some people say when they dislike cats. But they nearly always don't explain why. It appe...
