Early "domestic cats" were actually tamed wildcats

It is said, with confidence nowadays, that the first domestic cats on the planet existed about 9500 years ago. It all started in an area that we know now as Syria and spread out from there. The skeleton of a wildcat and a man were unearthed on the island of Cyprus. The remains were dated at 9500 years ago.

It is entirely plausible that cats were domesticated before that date perhaps as long ago was 14,000 years in the past. The wild cat on Cyprus had been imported onto that island from Syria by its owner.

This man had a pet cat. But his pet cat was a tame North African wildcat. It's a bit like today when people sometimes like to live with a tame serval. These are not truly domesticated cats. They are simply conditioned to behave in a fairly calm way around people. They are conditioned to live with people in the human environment. But they don't cope very well and they are quite challenging.

This very early 'domestic cat' was in fact a tamed wildcat from north Africa. Picture in the public domain.

I say that because this man living on Cyprus 9500 years ago would have had the same sort of issues with his pet cat. Although, admittedly, the North African wildcat is naturally predisposed towards a pliable character which gets along well with people. In fact, in Africa today there are African wildcats approaching human settlements and becoming somewhat like domestic cats.

But it is quite important to state that the first so-called 'domestic cats' were actually tamed wildcats. The difference is that with a tamed cat you have trained an individual cat to live with a person or persons but they are still in essence a wild cat and therefore their character is going to be somewhat difficult to accept. There might be the occasional aggression from the cat because they are inherently twitchy especially when living in this false environment of the human world.

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In contrast, the true domestic cat has developed over thousands of years. They have a lineage. They've either selectively bred themselves or humans have selectively bred them to have a character which is inherently domesticated or predisposed to domestication. In short, domestication is an alteration to the genetic make-up of an animal as opposed to an alteration of their behaviour. The former changes go far deeper than the latter.

An important further note to make is that domestic cats still require socialisation as kittens. If not they are fearful of humans.

It is somewhat ironic that on Cyprus today there are more cats than people. These are going to be community cats largely but there will be domestic and feral cats as well. This problem has occurred because of a lax approach to spaying and neutering of cats so they have been allowed to breed when living in the urban environment. And of course the government has not grasped the problem sufficiently well to resolve it.

RELATED: Why are there so many cats on Cyprus?

It is probably fair to state that Cyprus is a snapshot of what is wrong with the relationship between humans and cats. In the early days cat domestication it worked to a large extent. The first true domestic cats were in ancient Egypt about 4,000 years ago. They were all mackerel/spotted tabbies and slightly larger than today's domestic cat. Although the ancient Egyptians abused domestic cats by breeding them for sacrifice to the gods. That is a clear abuse by modern standards although it is tricky to judge a race of people by modern standards.

But the fact is that the concept of cat domestication is a good one but humans have screwed up and arguably it is been a failure of a process. This is because there are hundreds of millions of feral cats on the planet. They are homeless, they are often miserable, distressed and ill. Their lifespan is shortened. They should be living with people. This must be judged as a failure of humankind in the domestication of the cat.

Baby squeals in delight at the arrival of the family cat

A charming little video and a cat lover in the making, very definitely. This sweet baby squeals in delight at the arrival of the family cat to her cot and her mother lets their cat walk around the cot under supervision. I like that. Very controlled but beneficial to cat and baby, I'd say.

A lot of stuff has been written about cats and babies and whether cats are beneficial or detrimental to babies' health. In the old days they superstitiously believed that cats sucked the breath out of babies. They considered cats to be dangerous to babies. That was hundreds of years ago.

RELATED: Cat snuggles up to baby: beautiful and mutually beneficial (supported by science).

And then the early part of the 21st-century doctors thought that there were dangers in putting cats with babies because of transmission of disease and parasites et cetera but more recently, perhaps over the past 5-10 years, paediatricians believe that placing domestic cats near to babies and even in contact with them is beneficial to babies in terms of strengthening their immune system and desensitising them to allergies.

Baby squeals in delight at the arrival of the family cat

It is the latter which is the more powerful benefit. It helps to create a more robust child in general terms on my understanding. And so there are real health benefits to babies in having the family cat around.

RELATED: Quick Guide On Introducing Cat To Baby.

On a wider issue, if a baby has a great experience with a domestic cat it can only be good for cat welfare going forward. There will be one more adult in the world who is concerned about cat welfare and the world needs more of them.

This little child is going to be a cat lover and almost certainly an animal lover. She will do great things to improve animal welfare I believe!

Tip of cat tail bone exposed. Cause?

Here is a link to a slightly disturbing picture of the degloving of the tip of a cat's tail. I am linking to the picture in case it upsets some advertisers. It is not that bad though. It just depends how sensitive you are. The bone at the tip of the tail is exposed. The fur and skin are missing.  

It is the sort of injury that could lead to an infection and, yes, the cause is probably an injury because the tail was trapped in a door and the cat moved forward at the same time causing the skin to tear off. It is unusual to see bare bone like this.

Click to see injured tail tip 

Although trapped tails are probably not that unusual as they trail behind a cat. And cats linger around the feet of their owner. How it happens: the owner fails to see their cat at their feet and closes the patio door at the moment he/she is coming inside the home. Bingo, the tail is trapped and the skin torn off. 

The moral (one I have learned after stepping on my cat) is to always check you feet when closing doors and when feeding your cat in the kitchen.

This problem is one which come about because of the enormous size difference between cat and human. They can be almost invisible if they follow you around unless you look down all the time. There is a real danger of injury to a domestic cat if they are very attached to their owner. We are giants in the eyes of our cat companions. It is good sometimes to lie on the grass with your cat to get down to their height. I find that my cat appreciates it 😉.

A common injury with respect to the tail occurs when a car runs over the tail which pulls apart the sacral-lumbar or coccygeal vertebrae, stretching the nerves that go to the bladder, rectum and tail.

Animal rights activists in China fighting against the cat and dog meat trade

This is a good news story for animal advocates among the depressing stuff from China. The world is aware of the barbaric and brutal cat and dog meat trade in China. It truly is the worst of human behaviour resulting in catastrophic cruelty to, often, domestic animals. 

Yes, a recent story on the Independent newspaper states that 126 animals were saved from a slaughterhouse. These dogs were destined for a brutal death but were plucked to safety from an illegal operation. Many of these animals had collars. These are domestic companion animals. They are stolen from the streets and from houses et cetera to fuel this disgusting trade.

If the authorities were doing their job this trade wouldn't happen. If China had animal welfare laws it wouldn't happen. If they had animal welfare laws that were enforced it wouldn't happen. This trade is entirely due to ridiculous, out of date and ancient superstitions in combination with local government and national government which is entirely disinterested in animal welfare.

However, on the upside, there are some green shoots and there have been for some time of animal activist in China - and these are Chinese people - fighting back. One example is on Newsweek. It shows a video in which 282 dogs, some destined for the meat trade being rescued. The animal advocates intercepted a truck carrying these dogs.

On the truck there were 260 puppies and 22 adult dogs. The truck was making a 1000-mile journey. It was stopped on a highway in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui. The news comes from the Humane Society International. They described it as a "truck from hell". The conditions were so poor that 12 of the puppies had died at the time the truck was intercepted. A further 18 died shortly afterwards due to parvovirus and distemper. The surviving puppies suffered from dehydration and starvation in skin diseases.

However, if you do a search on Google, you will find that there are quite a few animal rescues by animal advocates in China normally from the back of trucks. These animals are destined to be brutally slaughtered by psychopathic traders. How do people become that callous? Many, many years of a culture and their way of life which simply totally disregards the sentience of animals and the fact that they feel pain and have emotions. That's the reason.

But this is a good news story because I'm seeing a change in China although it is far too slow. How does China think that they can integrate into the world community if they refuse to enact animal welfare laws. China is eons behind the UK and other European countries in this regard. They are living in the past. Their attitude towards animal welfare is that of mediaeval times. Shame on them. Shame on the president of China who supports traditional Chinese medicine which is the source of huge conservation problems but that is another subject albeit equally bad and depressing.

Message to Facebook fans and my friends on Facebook about scams

Initial notice: I am not criticising Facebook. I hope that I am helping to protect some users on Facebook and therefore I am helping Facebook. The second point is that Facebook is doing something about the problem that I describe below. So they are active in this area and doing their best to rectify any problems.

Facebook and Instagram blamed for a surge in scams

The Times reports that Facebook (FB) and Instagram have been blamed for a surge in scams as one of Britain's biggest banks has revealed that these Meta's owned sites are the source of the vast majority of their fraud cases.

The bank is TSB and they are the only bank in Britain to guarantee a refund for all scam victims. Their audit revealed that adverts posted on Meta-owned websites i.e. Facebook and Instagram, accounted for 81.1% of all online investment fraud causes experienced by their customers. This is between January 1 and June 21 of this year. Of these 55.7% advertise on Instagram while 25.4% advertise on Facebook.

In contrast, TSB say that no account holders have fallen victim to scam adverts on the Google search engine after they changed their rules in August 2021 to force all advertisers on their website to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Meta said that they are committed to forcing all advertisers on Facebook and Instagram to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the same way that Google insists on this.

America has its own financial regulators: Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and the Securities and Exchange Commission. I would expect them to be involved in the same way that the FCA is involved in authorising advertisers on Google in the UK. I hope so.

So the message to Facebook users is to be aware of adverts on FB purporting to be good investments and other such scams. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Don't share information or give out your PIN or password. If you receive an unexpected email don't click on the link. Check your Social Security privacy settings. Choose strong passwords and don't use public Wi-Fi for online shopping or banking.

In the meantime, my thanks to Facebook for being committed to addressing this weakness on their platform. There are people who suggest that Facebook should pay compensation to people who have lost money on these scammy investments.  I'm not suggesting that but in the meantime TSB is having to pay out large sums of money to compensate individuals who have lost chunks of their savings on these scams which are advertised on Meta's platforms.

Postscript: a spokeswoman for Facebook said that the company has dedicated "substantial resources" to tackle the scam adverts. They have a team of 40,000 whose job is to protect their users and they have invested in artificial intelligence to help deal with the problem. The company had joined Stop Scams UK, a cross-industry anti-scam group which includes banks. They donated £3 million to citizens advice to help with anti-scam initiative including a phone line for people who have been scammed.