Welsh police mistook a tabby kitten for a Scottish wildcat and allegedly abused the animal

This is another example of the stupidity of UK police. Over and over again they screw up. They are as thick as bricks. In this instance it occurred in Wales. The police seized what is clearly a cute tabby kitten, Finlay, from an address in Conway, North Wales believing that he was an endangered Scottish wildcat! There are no Scottish wildcats in Wales. Pretty well everyone knows that. They seized the cat because they thought that Finlay was being kept without a licence.

Finlay - a tabby kitten seized by the idiotic police as an endangered Scottish wildcat! Pic in public domain.

They had the cat examined and decided that he was a standard tabby cat. But in the meantime, they had kept him in their custody in an inappropriate enclosure for over four months. Yes, it took them four months to figure out that they had a tabby kitten rather than a Scottish wildcat!! Idiots.

And the enclosure was unsuitable with mulch on the floor. Finlay is now in a rescue centre called Wildcat Haven. They say that when he was released by Welsh police, he was in a bad way having suffered psychological trauma. They say that he was "seized and detained, in our opinion, without due cause or reason by the North Wales police.

He was kept at an undisclosed location for 4.5 month and when he was seized by the police he was in prime physical condition and they had hoped that he would be cared for properly and returned in the same condition.

But sadly not. They say that "it is clear that Finlay has experienced serious physiological and psychological trauma at the hands of his captors". They mean the police. They further said that "We were assured by the police that Finlay was receiving specialist care. Such mental and physical deterioration in four-and-a-half months, does not suggest specialist care. It suggests abuse."

And that “The police also told us numerous times that Finlay was being kept in a naturalistic enclosure. However, notes provided to us by the police show that he was kept in an enclosure with a mulch floor. He didn’t even have grass under his feet."

North Wales police denied the abuse claims and said that he had been monitored for his well-being throughout. They say that while at the facility he was regularly examined by veterinary surgeons and that his weight remained stable. They say that investigators assessed Finlay's features and "found it may have a low proportion of wildcat genes" but not enough to consider it a Scottish wildcat. Ridiculous.

All domestic cats have some wildcat genes in them because they come from wildcats. Wildcats are their ancestors. There is no doubt in my mind that Finlay is a standard tabby kitten. A domestic cat. The North Wales police are acting idiotically and now trying to fudge the result by saying that Finlay had some wildcat in him.

As I said in the opening paragraph, this is another example of the UK police behaving badly and stupidly. If they only did their job and caught some criminals life would be a lot better in the UK. But they manage to catch just 5% of the criminals who've conducted criminal acts in this country. The criminals know that they will not be caught and the citizens of the UK are unsupported by the police. They are on their own.

Far too often UK police waste time on red herrings and escapades which are noncriminal when they should be focusing on crimes like burglary which they have completely abandoned and thefts.

Viral video of mom reacting to the call of her kitten

Viral video of mom reacting to the call of her kitten

In the video we see a mother racing home in response to her kitten's cry. This is a viral TikTok video (which I hate to be honest because of the sound track - horrible 😎) in which the owner of a mother and her kitten becomes involved. He or she holds the kitten up while they are crying and calling for their mother. The mother is some distance away but she races in to be with her kitten. It has touched a chord in the minds of viewers because it reinforces this beautiful connection between mother and kitten which is so evident in this video.

@smokepresley #fyp #streets #cat #catsoftiktok #bengalkitten #513 #petsoftiktok #badanimals ♬ original sound - Life of Smoke

Of course, it is all entirely instinctive for a mother to respond like this. Clearly, the owner of this mother cat and kitten knew that this would be the mother's response and so he set up the whole thing. You might argue that this is slightly exploitative because the man is making a video on the back of this close connection and motherly instinct. It depends upon your point of view as to whether you see this as exploitative or not. It is beautiful and as mentioned it has touched a chord because it highlights the mother-kitten relationship.

Here is a little bit about the mother-kitten relationship. During the first few months of their lives kittens spend a great deal of time with their mum as you might expect. They say that the influence of the father in terms of raising the kitten is primarily genetic. In other words, the father simply mates with the mother and then clears off.  There is not always entirely the case because sometimes fathers are involved in the raising of their offspring. Under certain situations you might find several adult females helping each other raise their kittens. 

When kittens are between 26-32 days old, free-living mothers begin to bring killed prey back to the den for the kittens to consume. In their first introduction to solid food. And then she brings home live mice for the kittens to kill. The mother's interactions with her kitten are vital to their development both behaviourally and emotionally. 

Kittens who have been deprived of their maternal care are at a higher risk of developing aggressive and fearful behaviour. The weaning of a kitten from their mother's care is an important stage. Sometimes we see kittens to have been weaned too early and they develop what might be described as abnormal behaviours in trying to suckle on the arm or the year of their human owner. 

The experts say that "kittens should remain with their littermates and the mother cat until they are at least eight weeks old". That comes from Linda P Case in her book The Cat, Its Behaviour, Nutrition and Health.

Another author couple, Mel and Fiona Sunquist, state that kitten should not be removed from their mothers until about eight weeks of age. Separating them earlier can cause stress and behavioural problems as mentioned above.

The strong indication from the experts is that kittens should not be weaned from their mother until 12-14 weeks of age. I think this is an important statement because sometimes people who are involved in informal breeding of kittens want to release their kittens to their customers too early. This is cruel and immoral. And it can cause behavioural problems.

How important is available space in multi-cat homes in terms of cat welfare?

A study concluded that increasing the area for a group of cats confined to a specific area resulted in the cats playing more and being more active. They concluded that this indicated that they were more content and that extra space resulted in improved cat welfare. Note: the capitalised letters have been added for emphasis.

"In this study we examined the social and spatial behaviour in large groups of cats, as well as stress related body postures (using the Cat-Stress-Score) and if there were any changes within a stable group of 15 cats kept at different floor areas of 1 square meter, 2 square meters and 4 square meters PER CAT. Based on our results we conclude that increasing the area for group housed cats promote more play and general activity. Play can be an indicator of positive welfare for the cats."

They collected cats from shelters and used a fixed space in a research facility where the cats had varying amounts of space to themselves: one square metre, 2 m² and 4 m². The greater the space the more content they were is my interpretation of the summary of this research project.

Cats demand personal space like people. Photo in public domain.

There has to be a commonsense appraisal of this because the result doesn't surprise me at all. This is because an individual male domestic cat probably would naturally require an area up to around 50 acres. It will vary and it might be a smaller at about 10 acres and for female cats it will be smaller still but the space that they naturally require is going to be much larger than that they are allowed if they are full-time indoor cats. And even if they are allowed outside into a garden enclosure it is still unnaturally small.

In the study they were confined to a much smaller area and when allowed to expand into a larger area they became more content which, as mentioned, was predictable.

The point of this very brief discussion is that the amount of space allowed to a domestic cat can have an impact upon their stress levels and therefore their contentment and as a result their general welfare and health.

This is a point that needs to be remembered by people who desire to look after several cats in perhaps a small house or even an apartment.

Of course, domestic cats are adaptable and they will adapt to the smaller area and it depends on the relationship between the cats but it is better that they don't need to adapt as there is always this underlying instinct to live within an area of up to around 50 acres. This figure of up to 50 acres comes from other research studies. There have been many on this topic.

RELATED: Domestic cat territory – home ranges vary widely.

The study referred to: The effect of space on behaviour in large groups of domestic cats kept indoors - Sept 2016.

Can you ban domestic cats from a housing estate?

Yes, in new homes in new build housing estates. Housing estates are those groups of houses built by a single developer at one time and there are many of them in the UK and I'm sure in other countries. They are basically developments of new homes. The title deeds will be the same for every home. If you want to ban cats from the estate, the title deeds will be drawn up with a restrictive covenant within them. You can't ban cats from existing housing estates built some time ago. The covenants need to be entered in the title deeds at the time of creation of the homes.

Nightingale. Photo: RSPB

In the UK, provided the covenant (a promise) is unambiguous, not prohibited by competition law, not contrary to public policy and not assigned to a party, it will be enforceable by the builder or a management company. 

That may present a problem because about 35 years down the line the builder might have gone bust or they might not be interested in enforcing a restrictive covenant. And in my experience, many years after the creation of a restrictive covenant in a new build property, they become redundant and defunct and gradually people break the covenant and then a dozen years later the it is worthless.

And this is what I expect to happen in respect of a restrictive covenant in the title deeds of new homes built by Esquire Developments which places a 'no cat policy' within the estate. The developers could not build the estate without this policy because the RSPB and Natural England objected to the building of the houses because it is adjacent to a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill, the most important in the country for nightingales.

And therefore, the policy is designed to protect the nightingales which populate the woods nearby. The RSPB said "Nightingales will be highly vulnerable to the indirect long-term impacts arising from the proposed housing, including disturbance from noise and artificial lighting, recreational disturbance (where access allows) and predation by domestic cats."

RELATED: Attitude shift in Australia to confining domestic cats 24/7. This started years ago as this article was published in 2014.

I can understand the policy but it probably won't work both for the reason mentioned above and secondly because there are other homes nearby with residents who have cats. These people live in homes that are not subject to the same restrictive covenants and rules. And therefore, their cats can and probably have entered those words from time to time.

I don't expect that the development company is that concerned because all they want to do is get the estate built and make their money. They do say that they're going to set up a management company to monitor the "no cat policy".

In Australia, this sort of policy is probably fairly commonplace nowadays. For example, two weeks ago, Bass Coast Shire Council, south-east of Melbourne, announced a total ban on cats outdoors which caused outrage among pet owners. There is a growing policy in Australia to confine domestic cats to their homes one way and another or perhaps to compromise by allowing them outside the home on a lead. The purpose as always is to stop predation on wildlife.

Cats in backpacks banned from Mount Taranaki, New Zealand

NEWS AND COMMENT: Mount Taranaki also known as Mount Egmont is a dormant volcano on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is in the Egmont National Park. It is a place where Aucklanders like to take hike and there are those people with cats who like to hike with their cat companions in a large and appropriate backpack customized for convenient cat travel. It is a growing aspect of cat ownership and I like it because it gets the cats outside when often nowadays, they are confined to the inside.

Cat in backpack while owner is hiking. Image in public domain.

However, the staff of the Department of Conservation of New Zealand did not like what they saw: cats being carried in backpacks. 😎 A senior ranger, Dave Rogers, couldn't quite believe his eyes because cats and other domestic animals are forbidden from the park as they pose a threat to endangered birds like the Kiwi and other native species including geckos and insects.

Apparently, there was more than one cat owner with a cat backpack and they were spotted putting their cats into them in the car park. Mr Rogers said: "Bringing a pet into the park may seem a harmless thing to do but it has potentially deadly consequences for our native wildlife, particularly should the pets run loose or escape from their owners' control".

I think they are being unduly harsh. These cats are secure in a backpack and they are often wearing harnesses with a lead so that when they are removed from the backpack they are on a lead. That is not to say that they are going to be taken for a walk in this park. I am simply saying that the owner is taking a lot of precautions to keep their cats safe and to stop them roaming freely.

I'm sure that the rules applying to Egmont National Park concern free-roaming cats or other animals. But these are cats which are well and truly secured. I don't really see an issue unless the Rangers believe that the owners are going to be careless and set them free, which I can't envisage.

I have a feeling that the rules don't really accommodate cats in backpacks and therefore they been extended to include backpacks by these rangers in an ad hoc manner. They could amend the rules to allow cats in secured and commercially manufactured backpacks.

RELATED: Catastrophic loss of wildlife hits Australia. Cause? Humans.

After all cats have equal rights to kiwis or they should have. A compromise could be found. The trouble is that the New Zealand authorities don't like domestic cats that are allowed outside and it's the same in neighbouring Australia. The authorities have so screwed up wildlife conservation that they are responding by attacking the cat and not criticising themselves.

No pets are permitted in the park unless with written approval. Anyone found with pets in the park can be fined up to NZ$800. Repeat offenders can be fined up to NZ$100,000 or up to a year in prison. Pets can be seized and impounded.