My post last week about hybrid cats seems like a good transition into the next part of my blog: wildlife conservation. This week I will be highlighting the mighty Cheetah. Cheetahs are personally my favorite animal after regular house cats, and it is devastating to me to know that their populations are struggling right now.

Fig. 1 Cheetah

Cheetah’s are known for their speed and agility on the African savannah. They can run up to 23 feet in a single bound and up to 60-70 miles per hour! This makes them the fastest land mammal on the planet; however, this speed comes at a price. The cheetah has small teeth to give room for large nasal passages. This makes the cheetah less able to fight off predators such as lions, and if they are forced to choose between fighting over prey and running away from a lion, they will run away and will be left without food. Cheetahs are also extremely interesting because they do not roar. Cheetahs will typically make noises more like chirping and can even purr!

These are amazing animals but are currently considered to be a vulnerable species on the endangered species list. Human activity and habitat destruction has caused the cheetah population to drastically decrease over the last century. Cheetahs have become extinct in 13 African countries over the last 50 years, and only around 7,000 remain compared to 100,000 in 1900. The situation is only getting worse. Due to the destruction of the cheetah’s habitat in Africa, cheetahs have started to wander onto farms, leading to their deaths at the hands of farmers trying to protect their livestock. It’s not the farmers’ fault, as they are only trying to protect their livelihoods, but it is definitely the fault of someone. Cheetah populations are also declining because of illegal trade. Wild cheetahs are caught and sold illegally as exotic pets to the extreme rich around the globe, further damaging their natural populations.

Fig. 2 The Cheetah Conservation Fund’s Research and Education Centre in Namibia

I chose the Cheetah to highlight in this post, but these issues are happening to animal populations across the globe, and they can only be saved by human intervention. There are many conservation groups across the globe working to save animals like the Cheetah, and the only way for many of them to do their work is by getting donations. You can also go to Africa and volunteer, but that’s something that you would have to dedicate a lot of time and money into, and not everyone is able to do that, including me; however, the best way to help is to spread awareness. We can’t just let these animals suffer in silence, and making a fuss out of it spurs change, and hopefully one day we can bring these animal populations back.

A large amount of people in the United States own cats, and a majority of those people have normal house cats, but what about the exotic hybrid breeds that some people are drawn to. There has recently been some controversy over this topic, somewhat due to Justin Bieber buying two “half-wild” kittens. They might look pretty, but these breeds have a lot of issues with them that I will be highlighting in this blog post.

Fig. 1 Savannah Cat

Some people are drawn to the ultra-expensive cat breeds that are made to look like wild cats, but don’t actually know what they are getting themselves into. “Exotic” cat breeds like the Savannah cat (a hybrid between a house cat and an African Serval cat) can have many of the wild traits, especially in early generations. This causes them to be very bad indoor pets, but most people don’t like to let their cats roam the neighborhood, especially since cats like Savannahs have extremely high hunting instincts. Being cooped up in a house all day causes a lot of behavior issues if they are not exercised and played with at all times of day, and most people don’t want to put in that much effort into having a cat. People who buy these cat breeds oftentimes don’t know what they’re getting into, and this causes a lot of unhappiness in owners and sometimes they even have to rehome the cats in order to solve the issues they are having; however, rehoming these cats is extremely difficult due to their wild nature. Most wildlife sanctuaries and big cat sanctuaries have to have waiting lists for accepting Savannah cats because there are just so many that people want to rehome, and if a cat is having behavioral issues like most Savannahs end up having due to the circumstances, regular cat owners might not be willing to adopt them. This leaves the owner of the “exotic” cat with the choice of either keeping the cat until a sanctuary can accept them or dumping them in a shelter or on the streets, and either situation will cause issues.

Fig. 2 Savannah Cat at a Big Cat Sanctuary

With the amount of cats in shelters, there is never a reason to buy an “exotic” kitten that can cost up to $10,000, and if you want that “cool cat” look, you can admit that some tabbies look pretty wild sometimes! These cats are suffering because prospective cat owners don’t know what they’re getting into and pay big bucks for kittens they don’t know how to properly take care of, causing unhappiness in both the owner and the kitten. Sure, some “exotic” cat breeds have less issues with being indoors than others, but buying these “less-wild” breeds only encourages breeders to make more and exacerbate the issue. Cats are not toys to buy and dispose of once problems occur, and plenty are suffering in shelters across the United States. I urge you to please check out your shelters before paying a breeder for a kitten you won’t know how to deal with.

“Exotic” cats are not bad cats, but if you don’t have experience and don’t know how to take care of them, things can turn out not so ideal.

This week I will be enlightening you all on something different from what I usually do. This piece of animal welfare directly has to do with the United States Government. In this past year, the KITTEN Act, or Kittens in Traumatic Testing Ends Now Act, was introduced into Congress, and although it never was formally passed, it sheds light on issues within governmental agencies when it comes to the wellbeing of animals.

Fig. 1 Actual Images of Two of the Cats at the Experimentation Facility

Since 1982, the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) has been performing experiments on kittens concerning food-borne illnesses. They purposefully bred cats and fed young kittens contaminated food, causing them to become ill. They then studied the effects and euthanized the kittens afterward despite them would have been able to fully recover and live out relatively full lives. There were also allegations that the research forced the cats to be subjected to cannibalism.

USDA administrators have confirmed that over 2000 cats had been used in this experiment since it began in 1982 and has overall cost around 22 million dollars. They claimed that the kittens had to be euthanized because the food-borne bacteria could spread to humans, but this has been disproved and the likelihood of gaining the illness from the kitten is extremely low.

An investigation from the organization White Coat Waste Project initially discovered the tragic experiments and has been fighting against it ever since.

This past spring, the KITTEN Act was introduced to Congress calling for a stop to these experiments and prevention of future ones, and although not much came out of it legislation wise, the USDA declared on April 2^nd that they would cease all experimentation on cats, a big win for the KITTEN Act supporters.

Fig 2. Kitten Lady with Lawmakers Advocating for KITTEN Act

I first learned about this initiative through the Youtube channel Kitten Lady, whom I’ve mentioned before in previous blog posts. Hannah Shaw has done so much work for animal welfare and even visited congressmen at Capitol Hill specifically to promote the KITTEN Act. As a cat lover and someone with animal shelter experience, the thought of inhumanely experimenting on cats personally makes me sick to my stomach. Many people think that inhumane animal experimentation ended decades ago and seems like such an outdated commonplace, but it still happens, even in our own government. Intentionally breeding kittens only to slaughter them for little reason is completely ridiculous today, and personally I am glad that this Act had an impact and stopped theses dreadful experiments.

Experiments like this still happen today, and at least one of them has been stopped, but there might be more that we don’t even know about, so the fight is not over yet.

The words “no-kill shelter” have been floating around the internet and conversations for a long time. Delaware has even become the first state to have only “no-kill shelters”. But do people actually know what a no-kill shelter is? A “no-kill shelter” typically refers to one that won’t euthanize an animal that is healthy and will keep them until they are adopted, while a “kill shelter” may euthanize animals for reasons other than for the animals’ own wellbeing.

Animals shelters are typically grouped together by “kill shelters” and “no-kill shelters”, making it seem like a black and white label, but the truth is more of a gray area. The moniker “kill shelter” makes it seem like animals are just being murdered there because they can be, and in very rare cases this can be true, but most “kill shelters” are forced to be kill shelters due to a lack of funding and resources, and a lack of people willing to adopt.

Fig. 1 The Animal Shelter I Volunteered At Proudly Displaying Their “NO KILL” Status; Image Credit

The shelter I volunteered at was a no-kill shelter and was very proud of that fact. It could only stay a no-kill shelter due to the high rate of adoption in the area, the funds raised through large corporation donors, and the dedicated volunteers and staff running the shelter. Many shelters do not have these resources, however, and are forced to stay “kill-shelters”, giving them a bad reputation. Kill-shelters are often seen by people as bad places to adopt an animal, and so many people avoid them when looking to adopt, but this only worsens the issue. If people don’t adopt the animals in the kill-shelters, more of the animals there will get euthanized, and the shelter will get even less funding and profits, causing a cycle of harm.

Fig. 2 One of the Cats I Helped with at the Shelter; Image Credit: Author

There is also an unknown side to no-kill shelters. In many places, the definition of a healthy animal that can’t be euthanized in a no-kill shelter only includes non-feral, adult animals, leaving kittens and puppies and feral animals to be legally allowed to be euthanized. People believe that since a shelter is considered a no-kill shelter, they do not euthanize any animals, but this is simply not true. In most no-kill shelters, including mine, they try not to have to euthanize any of the feral or young animals, but when the resources run low (thankfully when I was at my shelter, they never did) the animals pay the price. Private shelters can also refuse to take in any animal they do not feel they can care for, leaving many still on the street or ending up in the overcrowded kill shelters.

There are good sides and bad sides to both types of shelters, but don’t be discouraged about going to either of them to adopt, because without adopters, the animals in these shelters won’t get to find their forever homes.

Most everyone has had a pet at some point in their life, and if they haven’t, then they are guaranteed to have at least met a dog or a cat. Something that I’ve noticed throughout my life is the large emphasis put on where exactly a person got their pet. Dog and cat shows are full of people proud to own purebred pets bought at high prices, and those who got their animals from a shelter almost certainly will mention it if you ask them. But which is better?

Fig 2. My Grandmother’s Cat In the Shelter; Image Credit: Author

Fig 1. My Grandmother’s Cat Out of the Shelter; Image Credit: Author

Personally, I have a large bias due to my experience in a shelter, but I have had pets from both sides before. My past dog was bought from a breeder, but my cat and my grandmother’s cat were from a shelter, so I can see the appeal of both sides to an extent. Both can have good and bad aspects.

The upside to shelter adoption is that without being adopted, the pets most certainly will not live very much longer, as most shelters are kill shelters, but the downside is that you sometimes have no idea the background of the pet and how they will react in different situations. The majority of pets in shelters are adults as well. A lot of people feel the need to get a young puppy or kitten, as they are typically the most appealing, and there just are not many of them in the shelter, and if they are, they get adopted out fast.

Shelter adoption is incredibly important because otherwise more pets will either be homeless or die every year, but buying a puppy or kitten isn’t always bad. If you by a pet from a reputable breeder that you can assure is not abusing the animals, it’s not that bad. Just be careful when choosing a breeder, because puppy mills still exist despite harsh laws against them, and personally I don’t condone animal abuse of any kind.

Fig 3. Puppies from a Breeder; Image Credit

One last thing to note is that adopting from a shelter saves animals that are currently in trouble and buying from a breeder only encourages them to keep breeding more, increasing the number of pets while so many still need homes.

It would be amazing if everyone were to adopt instead of shop, but I can understand the appeals of buying from a breeder. I just hope that everyone buying is looking into where the puppy or kitten came from in order to prevent abuse and neglect from occurring. Adopting is important, as it saves many lives, but buying a pet from a reputable breeder is not the worst thing in the world.

Feral cats are an everyday part of life in many places. Outdoor cats live anywhere they can survive, and it’s likely that everyone has seen a stray at one point in their life. Many people don’t know, however, that feral cats don’t just live by themselves. They often live in colonies where they can provide for one another. The main problem within a cat colony is the fact that every year, more and more kittens will be born, and the population will grow to where it can’t sustain itself. Think about how many outdoor cats you have ever seen, then think about each of those cats having around three to five kittens a year, and then those kittens growing up and having litters of their own the next year. That’s a lot of cats after only two years. This cycle continues every year in many places, and it has become an obvious problem due to both a lack of resources and the mortality rate of young kittens.

Fig. 1 Feral Cat in Humane Trap

The solution to this is simple: a program called Trap-Neuter-Return, or T.N.R. In this program, people or shelters catch feral cats, have them neutered and spayed so they can’t have any more kittens, and then return them back to the colonies in which they were found. This is incredibly important because many kittens born on the street end up not surviving, and the ones that do survive live to have kittens of their own, creating an endless cycle, but T.N.R. can break this cycle by ensuring that no more kittens are born into such an unforgiving environment. T.N.R. also improves the feral cats’ relationships with the humans near them, as neutering and spaying can make the cats healthier and can reduce the nuisance behaviors that oftentimes lead to them being taken away, such as territorial fighting and yowling.

I first learned about this program online, through both the Youtube channels of Kitten Lady, who I mentioned in my last post, and Cat Man Chris. Cat Man Chris (Chris Poole) does a lot of work with rescues of feral kittens and T.N.R. Many of his videos are about the many rescues he has performed over the years, but he also has fun making funny videos about his cats on the channel Cole and Marmalade. Kitten Lady Hannah Shaw also constantly reiterates the importance of T.N.R., as that program can reduce the number of kittens born on the street and needing to be placed in foster care.

Fig. 2 Feral Cat Colony in Philadelphia

As I have mentioned before in previous blogs, I volunteered at an animal shelter for quite some time, and a feral cat colony was living behind the shelter. I saw up close how fearful these cats were of humans and how dedicated the staff were to caring for them. Since these cats had already been neutered and spayed, there were no issues with kittens being born in this colony, but kittens constantly entered the shelter from other stray cats and feral colonies. These kittens could’ve been saved from having to suffer until they got to the shelter if people had known about the T.N.R. program before the kittens were born.

Many dedicated people across the world care for feral cat colonies, and if more people knew about T.N.R, then more cats can be saved from having to suffer on the streets in the future.

Around two years ago, I was browsing on YouTube (as one does), and I discovered a channel called Kitten Lady. I was drawn to this channel by the adorable kittens in the thumbnails but stayed because of the messages Hannah Shaw (Kitten Lady) put in her videos. When you visit an animal shelter, a majority of animals you see are either adults or older puppies and kittens. But where are the youngest ones? The answer is that they are either at a foster, or the shelter just doesn’t have enough resources to take them in, causing them to have to be euthanized or left on the streets. Extremely young kittens take up a lot of resources and time that many shelters just don’t have, and that’s why they depend on fosters to take in these kittens. So many kittens are born on the street every year, and many of them end up not surviving, but the ones that do end up getting to an animal shelter still have struggles to go through to survive.

Fig 1. Kitten Lady (Hannah Shaw) With One of Her Foster Kittens

Kittens between the age of 0-8 weeks need round-the-clock care, sometimes with feedings every two hours at the beginning, and many animal shelters do not have enough employees to be able to care for them, and so many of these vulnerable kittens end up having to be euthanized due to lack of resources. This can be avoided through people agreeing to foster young kittens. Of course, a person needs to be able to dedicate the time to fostering, as you can’t just take a kitten and then not be able to care for it!

Fostering isn’t just solely limited to kittens though. I’m most knowledgeable about kittens and cats as that’s what I have been mainly focused on for the past two years, but dogs and cats of all ages need foster homes due to overcrowding of shelters or special needs of the animal. Sometimes a perfectly friendly pet does not get along with other animals, and has to be euthanized simply because they cannot handle living in a shelter.

Ever since learning about fostering, I’ve always wanted to do it, but of course I’m a college student with no stable income, so it’s going to have to wait a while until I can dedicate my time. Since I was unable to foster kittens during high school, I decided to start volunteering at an animal shelter. Every once in a while, one of the employees would come out of the back room holding a tiny kitten, and I would remember exactly why I was volunteering.

Fig 2. My Cat Soon After He Was Adopted; Image By Author

My cat was a foster kitten, and I always wish I had found out the name or contact info of the people who fostered him, because I will be eternally grateful to them for taking in a vulnerable kitten who ended up growing up into such a loving cat. Learning that my cat was one of those tiny foster kittens on YouTube only fueled my desire to help.

Not everyone is suited for fostering an animal, but if you are able to, I would strongly encourage it. I can’t foster right now, but I desperately wish I could, so instead I will try and spread awareness. Vulnerable kittens and puppies die everyday because there is no one to care for them. If I could foster even one kitten, I would be happy knowing I saved at least one life. A small action can have a large impact.

When I think of writing a passion blog, my mind immediately jumps to the subjects I have been learning about in my free time for years: animal welfare and wildlife conservation. Many animals across the globe are suffering because of human decisions, and I wish to educate the people on both certain issues and why I have come to have such strong opinions about them. We will start this journey close to home, because if you don’t personally own a cat, I’m willing to bet you at least know someone who does.

Fig. 1 New York State Legislature

This past June, the New York State Legislature passed a law banning the declawing of cats across the state of New York, making New York the first state to pass a bill on this subject, although others are currently considering it and many cities have already passed local laws. A ban on the declawing of cats is incredibly important to animal welfare efforts across the country. Many people believe that the declawing of cats is a benefit, as it means that they can no longer scratch up their owner’s furniture, but declawing is a much more devastating procedure than it is advertised as. When a veterinarian declaws a cat, they are not just removing the claw, they are actually amputating the toes of the cat up to the first knuckle. This intensely painful procedure can not only have severe complications but can cause chronic pain throughout the rest of the cat’s life. Additionally, many behavioral issues further down the line have been linked to declawing, including increased biting and avoidance of the litter box. Cats without claws feel defenseless, sometimes causing complete changes in demeanor. A completely happy and friendly cat can be traumatized and turn fearful and aggressive all due to one avoidable procedure.

I used to be a volunteer in an animal shelter, and through my work there I have seen first hand the devastating side effects of declawing. The shelter I worked in was in a city where declawing was already banned, but occasionally a cat would be surrendered having already been declawed elsewhere. A majority of these declawed cats had noticeable behavioral issues and even had to use special litter boxes that wouldn’t hurt their feet. In many instances, these were the reasons the cats were surrendered in the first place, which made it extremely hard to find people to willing to adopt them.

Fig. 2 My Cat Using His (Thoroughly Destroyed) Scratching Post; Image by Author

There are many alternatives to declawing cats, such as getting their claws regularly trimmed by yourself or your vet, and there are even products made to cover their claws so that they do not scratch the furniture. Even if you opt not to do either of these options, you can always try to make sure there are plenty of scratching posts and alternatives to your furniture for the cats to exercise their scratching instinct, or you can just do what I do: accept the inevitability of dealing with damage to the house from time to time.

Progress is being made in this fight against declawing, but it is not happening quick enough. Every day, more and more cats and kittens go through this procedure that will ultimately affect their lives forever.

Ultimately the decision on whether or not a person declaws their cat is not mine to make, but if you are considering this procedure, I urge you to reflect on what matters more: your furniture or your pets’ happiness and well-being.