Tattoo Thursday

YaHoo! Hairless Cat Getting Temporary Tattoo Is the Video You Didn’t Know You Needed

Yes, that’s right! In a recent TikTok video shared by @maddoggsecretacc, Binx the hairless cat received his first tattoo—and we’re happy to say that we were here for it! His mom shared the clip, which shows her holding the cat with a wet paper towel pressed on his shoulder while they “wait for the ink to dry.” Binx couldn’t get away fast enough once it was all over, but the tattoo of a celestial unicorn really dazzled. As you can imagine, the comment section did not disappoint. Here are a few highlights:

“Please don’t do this, he can throw his life away and join a biker gang!”

“How is he supposed to get a professional job now?”

“Yet another reason why I NEED a hairless cat.”

The Wombat has Rule Five Sunday: Laundry Day up and at 'm at The Other McCain.

Thursday Tanlines

Edd

Good news in the tanning world, at the Star Telegram, Cat trapped in old tanning salon lived on toilet water in Texas. Then Edd got new home

When Edd was discovered by Houston SPCA investigators, he was living in a closed-down tanning salon, living off toilet water with no food in sight, the shelter said in an Aug. 27 Facebook post. He was also underweight and skittish.

“Shoppers and fellow business owners said they could see him in the window,” Julie Kuenstle with the Houston SPCA told McClatchy News. “It’s estimated that Edd was inside the closed store for around a month but survived on the water in the toilet.” Now, weeks later, Edd is ready to start a new chapter of his life — his now-healthy life.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Well Rounded up and garnering clicks at The Other McCain.

Chinese Skull Suggests New Branch on Human Bush

Skull of the ancient hominin from China.
(Wu et al., Journal of Human Evolution, 2023)

At Science Alert, Ancient Skull Found in China Is Unlike Any Human Seen Before

An international team of scientists has described an ancient human fossil in China unlike any other hominin found before. It resembles neither the lineage that split to form Neanderthals, nor Denisovans, nor us, suggesting our current version of the human family tree needs another branch.

The jaw, skull, and leg bones belonging to this yet-to-be classified hominin, labeled HLD 6, were discovered in Hualongdong, in East Asia, in 2019. In the years since, experts at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have struggled to match the remains to a known lineage.

The hominin's face is similarly structured to that of the modern human lineage, which split from Homo erectus as far back as 750,000 years ago. But the individual's lack of chin appears more like that of a Denisovan – an extinct species of ancient hominin in Asia that split from Neanderthals more than 400,000 years ago.

Working alongside researchers from China's Xi'an Jiaotong University, the UK's University of York, and Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution, researchers at CAS think they have uncovered an entirely new lineage – a hybrid between the branch that gave us modern humans and the branch that gave us other ancient hominins in the region, like Denisovans.

Until proven otherwise, I will assume all prehistoric human lines had hot chicks. 

At Eureka Alert!,  A climate-orchestrated early human love story

To unravel when and where human hybridization took place, scientists usually rely on paleo-genomic analysis of extremely rare fossil specimens and their even scarcer ancient DNA content. In the new Science paper, the team of climate experts and paleo-biologists from South Korea and Italy pursued a different approach. Using existing paleo-anthropological evidence, genetic data and supercomputer simulations of past climate, the team found that Neanderthals and Denisovans had different environmental preferences. More specifically, Denisovans were much more adapted to cold environments, characterized by boreal forests and even tundra, compared to their Neanderthal cousins who preferred temperate forests and grassland. “This means that their habitats of choice were separated geographically, with Neanderthals typically preferring southwestern Eurasia and Denisovans the northeast”, says Dr. Jiaoyang Ruan, postdoctoral researcher at the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP), South Korea and lead author of the study.

However, according to their realistic computer simulations the scientists found that in warm interglacial periods, when Earth’s orbit around the Sun was more elliptic and northern hemisphere summer occurred closer to the Sun, the hominin habitats began to overlap geographically. “When Neanderthals and Denisovans shared a common habitat, there were more encounters and interactions among the groups, which would have increased the chance of interbreeding”, adds Prof. Axel Timmermann, corresponding author of the study and director of the ICCP and professor at Pusan National University.

But how did the climate warm without coal-fired power plants and SUVs? 

And just for fun, 5 million-year-old fossils reveal 2 new species of saber-toothed cats in South Africa

Scientists have unearthed the remains of two never-before-seen species of saber-toothed cats that roamed Africa around 5.2 million years ago. The discoveries have changed what researchers previously knew about this group of extinct feline creatures, a new study shows.

The new findings could also shed light on the environmental changes happening at the time, which could help reveal why human ancestors started walking on two legs. researchers say.

The partial remains of the two newfound species, Dinofelis werdelini and Lokotunjailurus chimsamyae, were unearthed alongside the bones of two other known species, Adeilosmilus kabir and Yoshi obscura, near the town of Langebaanweg on the west coast of South Africa. The four species belong to the subfamily Machairodontinae — an extinct group of feline predators that included most species of saber-toothed cats. (The name Machairodontinae means "dagger-tooth.") Most members of this subfamily were equivalent in size to most big cats alive today.

In a new study, published July 20 in the journal iScience, researchers described the remains of all four species. The discovery of D. werdelini was not a surprise to the team, because species from this genus had previously been uncovered in the area and across the globe, including Europe, North America and China. However, the researchers were shocked to discover L. chimsamyae because, until now, members of this genus had only ever been found in Kenya and Chad.

I have seen in the past (don't make me Google) that sabre-tooth species were widespread down through prehistorical times, up until fairly recently, the end of the last glaciation. It's kind of a shame that none of the existing cat species show this trait.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Salma Hayek up on time at The Other McCain.

Molon Labe!

 WaT, Climate alarmists could 'cancel' your pets

The climate alarmists have come for your pets. No, really. A new report from Vox.com is now urging the public to consider offering a home to other pets besides dogs and cats. Why?

The report says their respective diets and lifestyles contribute to global warming for various reasons. In addition, the toilet needs of contemporary dogs include the use of pastel-colored poop bags while cats visit litter boxes where the filler is not necessarily made of natural, eco-friendly materials like wood shavings.

 

“Are our pets gobbling up the planet? From the meat-based meals to kitty litter to plastic poop bags, pet care is unarguably bad for the environment,” Vox said, offering ways to reduce pets’ carbon pawprint and citing the perils of pet waste — equivalent to “the annual trash of 6.6 million humans.”

Welcome to the age of the pandemic puppyhood.

“Climate activists are now trying to cancel pets. Pet Police have arrived,” writes Marc Morano, founder of ClimateDepot.com, an admirable news site which chronicles climate activism.

“Reducing the rate of dog and cat ownership, perhaps in favor of other pets that offer similar health and emotional benefits, would considerably reduce these impacts,” Gregory Okin, a geography professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Vox.

The ever-watchful Mr. Morano points out that the ecological mindset toward dogs and cats has evolved, and not in the pet’s favor. In 2016, EcoWatch.com — an environmental news source — was more concerned about the climate’s negative impact on pet populations, publishing an investigative study titled “How climate change affects our pets.”

Deep in the heart of every liberal is a little cry that someone, somewhere, in enjoying something. 

Dang Cats!

Gizmodo, We Have to Do Something About Outdoor Cats

I hate outdoor cats with a burning passion. I set out to write a blog calling for an Isle of Dogs-style roundup of feral cats, a mass adoption drive and cat cull, and outlawing outdoor and community cats. But I’ve realized that things aren’t that simple.

Humans have already drastically altered the environment, and our impacts, including our beloved cats, come with us wherever we go. Cats are an extension of our destruction, and humans are passionate about their love or hatred of the animal. But when you try and distill the discussion down to facts, two contradictory things become clear: cats are a huge problem, and you can’t just undo the problem.

On the other hand, the presence of humans, and human hunting have drastically reduced natural predator abundance around human habitat. When was the last time you ran into a wolverine not in comic or film?

Humans domesticated the modern cat thousands of years ago as a form of early pest control, normally to keep rodents away from crops. The domestic cat is its own species of animal, created by our selective breeding. We keep cats in our homes and allow them to roam the streets. We’ve brought them with us wherever we’ve settled, where they serve as either companions or as pest controllers. Many have established feral populations. Some humans consider those feral populations “community cats” and care for them.

Did we domesticate them, or did they just decide they'd suck up to us for access to the rodents in our granaries?

Outdoor cats—both the ones we leave outside and the ones that have established their own populations—are an environmental catastrophe. One highly-cited 2013 study found that cats (mostly feral cats) kill around 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually in the United States alone, likely leading to population declines in some species. Cats are partially responsible for the extinction of 33 species endemic to islands and at least 20 species in Australia.

And yet, they're clearly not getting nearly enough moles, voles and squirrels in our back yard. And there are very few endangered birds in the United States, and several of them are far too big to be threatened by a house cat. California Condor? Please...

As for whether the indoor lifestyle is better for the cats, that’s unclear. Some sites claim that outdoor cats have shorter lifespans than indoor cats, or that community cats have similar lifespans to indoor cats, but these claims seem to be based on anecdote. However, what’s clear is that outdoor cats face threats that indoor cats do not.

Wild people clearly have shorter lifespans than domestic people to; what of it?  Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

So, you might wonder, if they’re so bad for the environment, what do we do about cats? Presently, we attempt to control cat populations either through adoption or through trap-neuter-return programs—collecting cats off of the street, neutering them, and returning them to where they were found. Sometimes these programs work, and sometimes they don’t—as one study explains: “This suggests that all these efforts without an effective education of people to control the reproduction of house cats (as a prevention for abandonment) are a waste of money, time and energy.” In Australia, things have gotten so bad that they’re resulting to a mass feral cat cull, hoping to kill two million cats by 2020.

 Let the dingoes eat 'em!

But studies show that you can’t just remove all of the cats from a place once they’ve shown up without putting some thought into it. On Macquarie Island between Australia and Antarctica, removing the non-native cats caused the non-native rabbit population to spike, destroying much of the island’s native vegetation, according to one study. (Other authors took issue with that study’s methodology.) Another study based on a model found a similar surge in rat populations. The rats, like cats, attack the native fauna.

Environmental groups take various conflicting stances on what should be done. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals promotes trap, neuter, and return programs, or relocating feral cats as a last resort. The American Bird Conservancy promotes putting all cats indoors, and does not support trap neuter, return programs. PETA, too, supports bringing all cats indoors rather than trap, neuter, return programs, and only implementing these programs when the cats are also removed from the potential harms of outdoor life.

 I hear Democrats want to give them the vote, too.

There aren’t United States federal laws that deal with outdoor cats, feral cats, or trap, neuter, return programs. State laws vary, and most state laws don’t mention feral or outdoor cats, according to one 2010 analysis, which notes that those states that do have cat laws typically leave it up to communities to pass ordinances about their cats.

(By the way, I love indoor cats. I have a plump tuxedo cat with a crooked white mustache and a charming, hoarse meow named Dinah.)

 And I have a . . .

After wading through the information available, it’s clear that there are more opinions than facts on the matter and most of those opinions are extreme, driven by the differences in opinion on how to interpret the conflicting data. It is clear that outdoor cats are a huge problem caused by humans that must be fixed by humans. But in order to solve the problem, it’s going to take more than just milquetoast trap-neuter-release policies in a few cities. It’s going to take committed, global, and united action, with towns around the world devoting the necessary financial resources to take feral cat population control measures seriously. This will require that people keep their cats inside or on a leash, just like we do with dogs.

 Has this guy ever tried to walk a cat on leash? I have.

But the real solution is to realize that cats aren’t the problem. Humans are the problem, and the cats are just living in the world that humans created for them. Fixing the issues caused by outdoor cats requires a holistic look at the landscape more generally: controlling rats, Asian longhorned beetles, and other invasive species, combatting climate change, cleaning up the ocean, and so on. The Earth isn’t a piecemeal collection of species and habitats. It’s one big interconnected thing. You can’t just undo the damage you cause.

The Cat Came Back. Laurie Berkner. from matthew edginton on Vimeo.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Monday: The Next Queen Of Westeros? up and running at The Other McCain.

Betrayed by the Cat

Anna Rudenok

Wife discovers husband is a cheat after spotting their home and cat in girl’s Instagram photos

A woman discovered her lecturer husband was cheating on her after spotting her own home in the background of one of his student’s photos. In a photo the 19-year-old posted to Instagram, Anna Rudenok noticed the flat she was sat in belonged to her and her partner.

The 24-year-old began to suspect her husband Dmitry, 27, was being unfaithful after noticing he kept ‘liking’ photos posted on the social media site by student Emilia Ignatova.

Anna Rudenok

After delving deeper, the mother-of-one found images on Emilia’s page showing the girl wearing her clothes and playing with her pet cat.

She was horrified to see the cot where her and her husband’s baby son slept appeared in the background of one picture. A caption on one of the pictures reads: ‘Yet another breezy day to pay my university debts.’

I think the son's bed may have been an even bigger giveaway than the cat.

Emilia Ignatova

All the photos were taken when Anna was away from home visiting her mother’s house with their child.

According to reports, Dmitry is a teacher and chief press officer at South Ural State University in Russia.

Emilia Ignatova

Not that this is relevant to any of this, but this was pretty close to the site of the Chelyabinsk meteor strike.

When his furious wife messaged him about the illicit relationship he immediately deleted his Instagram account and Emilia made her own page private.

Neither of them denied the wife’s accusations and Anna later claimed her husband had admitted to having an 18 month relationship.

To be fair, it's cold there this time of year.

H/T Ace. A week late and twice as big due to tax season, Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Not Your Normal Graduation Picture" ready for business.

When You're Camping and It's Lunch Time

And you don't know whose:

Hikers filming in Sequoia National Park suddenly spot a mountain lion and decide to slowly back away. https://t.co/PcpCN74HfV pic.twitter.com/QQrWwawnRC

— ABC News (@ABC) August 9, 2017

Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!

Eagle cam catches cat being fed to eaglets

Cat lovers may be less inclined to view an online livestream of a family of bald eagles in Pittsburgh after the webcam showed two adult eagles feeding a feline to their eaglets.

Viewers on Tuesday saw the adult eagles bring a cat to the nest for the two youngsters.

Some viewers were disturbed that the image was caught on camera, but Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania spokeswoman Rachel Handel tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the feeding behavior was perfectly normal. She also wrote on Facebook that "the eagles bring squirrels, rabbits, fish (and other animals) into the next [sic] to eat multiple times each day."

Handel says the group couldn't determine if the cat was a pet or feral.

My bold.



At least, I'm reasonably sure no Osprey was robbed for this meal.

Unintended Consequences

Bring me a gazelle!

Hwange National Park to Slaughter African Lions Due to Lack of Hunters

Nearly a year ago, the world erupted in outrage when an American hunter killed “Cecil the Lion” in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Hunters were demonized, a man’s livelihood was destroyed and major corporations changed their policies to keep people from enjoying legal hunting. Baffled conservationists in African countries warned that pressuring hunters to stay out of Africa would harm wildlife. The gibbering gibbons of the anti-gun and anti-hunting movements continued their persecution of hunters. Now the same park in Zimbabwe where Cecil met his end may need to slaughter 200 lions due to the drought of wealthy hunters. From the National Post . . .

Bubye Valley Conservancy has more than 500 lions, the largest number in Zimbabwe’s diminishing wildlife areas. It has warned that its lion population has become unsustainable and that it may even have to cull around 200 as a result of what is being called “the Cecil effect.” …
Conservationists estimate about half of Zimbabwe’s wildlife has disappeared since President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned land began in 2000, but Bubye has held on by attracting wealthy hunters whose fees support its wildlife work. But last year’s shooting of Cecil, in a conservancy bordering Hwange National Park, sparked a huge backlash against big-game hunting, and bolstered a U.S. plan to ban trophy hunting imports.

The astronomical fees foreign hunters paid to shoot animals in Africa directly supported thecontinent’s conservation efforts. It was a mutually beneficial, self-sustaining system. Now that the hunters are gone, there isn’t enough money to support Hwange National Park‘s operation and the ecosystem is out-of-whack. Lions will be killed, anyway, without any of hunting’s enormous economic benefits.

It's not that they love wildlife, they just hate people and they really don't want them to enjoy hunting.

Scientists Propose to Resurrect Cave Lions

Scientists attempt to clone Ice Age LION CUBS after discovering 'near-perfect' 12,000-year-old remains in Siberia

Scientists are attempting to clone extinct Ice Age lion cubs by finding DNA in the remains of the creatures.

Two cubs were found in Russia's Sakha Republic last August in a near-perfect state thanks to the deep-freeze conditions where they lay.

Researchers hope to find living tissues containing DNA in the remains, which will allow them to recreate the now extinct Ice Age cave lion.

The project is a joint venture by Russian and South Korean scientists at the Joint Foundation of Molecular Paleontology at North East Russia University in the city of Yakutsk.

Semyon Grigoriev, who is involved in the lion cub project, is also working on cloning a mammoth using the same process.

I've reported on plans to revive the mammoths before, but this looks like a better opportunity.

The 12,000-year-old cave lion cubs were found frozen in ice last year- so well preserved their whiskers are still bristling.

The pair of prehistoric predators, named Uyan and Dina, are the most unspoilt examples of this ancient big cat species ever found.

Scientists found the felines in a remote Siberian region and dug them up, giving them their first public appearance since Pleistocene times.

I really hope they succeed. I hope to see some of the Pleistocene  megafauna revived in my lifetime.

The mega-links from Wombat-socho, "Rule 5 Sunday: Looking Back, All I Did Was Look Away", is up at The Other McCain.

Just Pick One, OK?

La temeraria caza de una pareja de leones

La diferencia entre un macho y una hembra, al momento de decidir cuándo y cómo cazar a su presa...

Posted by Teletrece on Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Scientists vs. Cucumbers

I assume you've all seen Cats vs Cucumbers

You’ve all seen Cats vs. Cucumbers. Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs in scientists. I give you… Scientists vs. Cucumbers.
Posted by Aubrey Kelly on Thursday, November 19, 2015

Thanks to Heather. 

Cats ARE Probably Trying to Work Out How to Kill You

Cats ARE neurotic - and they're probably also trying to work out how to kill you, say researchers 

A study carried out between the University of Edinburgh and Bronx Zoo compared our beloved domestic cat with its wilder relatives.

Compared with the snow leopard, the Scottish wildcat and the African lion, researchers found these larger predators shared similar characteristics of aggression and neurotic behaviour to domestic cats.


Dominance, impulsiveness and neurotic behaviour are the most common trait shared between the domestic cat and the wild cat.

Not to mention serial killers.

The researchers used a testing method known as the 'Big Five' personality test: Openness to Experience, Extraversion/Introversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism.

A total of 100 cats, from two different shelters in Scotland were used in the experiment, whilst the other animals were examined from zoos and animal sanctuaries in the UK and USA.

Shelter cats are neurotic and act like wild animals? Knock me over with a feather!

'They're cute and furry and cuddly, but we need to remember when we have cats as pets, we are inviting little predators into our house,' psychologist Dr. Max Wachtel told 9NEWS.

'For a lot of people, it is worth it. Cats can be fantastic, sweet companions. Until they turn on you.'

Only their size prevents the cat from being able to unleash its full predatory qualities.

I like cats; but they make me sneeze.

Linked above the line at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: The Hearts of Space" up at The Other McCain.

More Cat Woman Blogging

Just because we haven't had enough Japanese Weirdness since Hannah Minx dropped off of Youtube:

Japan Loves Women In Cat-Themed Lingerie

‘Girl, you must be a parking ticket because you’ve got fine feline written all over you.’ Sorry, just preparing myself for the sort of pickup lines I might hear the next time I’m visiting Japan. In a country that created a Google Street View for cats, you shouldn’t really be surprised to learn that one of the hottest selling items among women involves felines. What you may not have expected, however, is that this product doesn’t involve cat cafes or kitty hotels. Rather, the purring is over some of the sexy cat-themed lingerie for sale at one of Japan’s online boutiques.

On the surface, the Japanese underwear looks like a regular pair of bra and panties. What gives it a distinctive touch is the subtle texture around the seams, which is designed to resemble cat fur. Currently, the most popular styles are black cat, Tabby, and Siamese. In addition to the fur texture, the most noticeable aspects of the lingerie are the cat tail that ties to the back of the underwear and the included set of cat ears. The tails tie onto the underwear with silk and match the bows decorating the intimate apparel. The Tabby set even comes with its own choker that resembles a collar.

Kind of tame for Japanese weirdness; I was expect hoping something more like:

For those women interested in exporting this weird Japanese fashion trend to other countries, a set of cat-themed lingerie will cost you around $30. They come in a range of sizes and represent over twelve different cat species. Me-ow.

Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Roll Tide!"  post up at the The Other McCain.

Science Says No Love for Cats

Your cat doesn’t love you: science

Researchers at the University of Lincoln have concluded that cats, unlike dogs, do not need humans to feel protected.

Before cat lovers start despairing about their aloof pets, however, animal behaviourists said they should take the finding as a compliment. If cats stay, it means they really want to be there.

Daniel Mills, Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine at the University of Lincoln’s School of Life Sciences, said: “The domestic cat has recently passed the dog as the most popular companion animal in Europe.

I think that's to be expected in a area of the world which is increasingly urban. Cats present much less investment in time and space than dogs, who require lots of exercise for health and happiness. Cats thrive with much less care, often including none at all. Wild dogs are a threat to humans, but wild cats are only a threat to small wildlife.

“Previous research has suggested that some cats show signs of separation anxiety when left alone by their owners, in the same way that dogs do, but the results of our study show that they are, in fact, much more independent than canine companions.

“It seems that what we interpret as separation anxiety might actually be signs of frustration.” To find out if cats needed their owner to feel secure, the researchers observed how 20 cats reacted when they were placed in an unfamiliar environment together with their owner, with a stranger or on their own.

By all evidence, cats were domesticated, if you consider what they are domesticated, much more recently than dogs, about 8,000 years ago, compared to dogs 30-40,000 years ago. The added time has allowed the dog to become a much better fit to the human personality.

The study monitored the amount of contact sought by the cat, the level of passive behaviour, and signs of distress caused by the absence of the owner.

“Although our cats were more vocal when the owner rather than the stranger left them with the other individual, we didn’t see any additional evidence to suggest that the bond between a cat and its owner is one of secure attachment,” Prof Mills said.

Moreover, dogs are descended from a hyper-social species, the wolf, which has strong, enduring family bonds. Even in lions, the most social of cats, the male young are ultimately kicked out of the pride to sink or swim on their own. The modern house cat is descended from a semi-social species, with which it still continues to freely interbreed when in proximity.

“This vocalisation might simply be a sign of frustration or learnt response, since no other signs of attachment were reliably seen. For dogs, their owners often represent a specific safe haven; however it is clear domestic cats are much more autonomous when it comes to coping with unusual situations.”

Although the researchers say cats can still develop bonds with, and affection for their owners, the new study shows that they do not depend on them in the same way that dogs do.

I wouldn't let it fret you. Cats love you about as much as it's possible for them to love you. Their emotions are not our emotions, but their is certainly some element there where they'd rather have you around than not. Many human "loves" are not much more.

Wombat-socho has the big list, "Rule 5 Sunday: Proudly Encouraging The Male Gaze Since 2009" up at The Other McCain.

Puttin' On the Dog

Pamela collecting the raw materials

Meet the woman who turns roadkill into fine fur

What most of us call roadkill, Pamela Paquin calls “accidental fur.” She takes the casualties of New England roadsides and turns them into accessories that sell for more than $1,000 apiece.

Pamela with some finished product

I found this article through Althouse, who reads fashion crap, so I don't have to. But as I believe I've said before, I have some experience with hunting, trapping and tanning hides, so I was intrigued. I was also impressed by the number of articles on it, and the variety of photos. She's getting tons of good press.

But her goal isn’t just to make money. She wants to make fur – fraught with controversy due to animal cruelty concerns – an ethical, sustainable fashion statement.

What happened to my brother?

While I'm strongly in favor of both well managed hunting and trapping, certainly making use of the roadkill is a worthy endeavor; let the vultures and other scavengers go on a diet.

The task isn’t for the faint of heart.

She harvested her first roadkill last year with the help of a hunter and a shot of whiskey. “I got this crazy knife that was completely wrong for the task, got my hazmat suit on, took a shot of whiskey and just started doing it,” Paquin, 39, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Oh hell, it shouldn't take a shot of whisky; and if it did, one shot wouldn't be enough. Just start with a sharp knife, and put a clothes pin on your nose. But then, my teenage job often consisted of removing large numbers of dead fish from fish tanks at a whole sale tropical fish warehouse.

That first animal, a raccoon, was unfortunately harvested “too early in the season” for roadkill. The animal was rotten and its insides had totally liquefied. Gross.

Most people would have probably abandoned the whole idea after that. But Paquin persevered — and now raccoon is her most popular pelt.

Around here, one would have a plethora of squirrels (the fresh fall crop are exceptionally stupid), lots of deer, which make lousy fur but good leather, and a splmattering of opossum, skunks and raccoon, and of course the dog and cats. Coyotes and bobcats live locally, but I have yet to see one, let alone one flattened.

A few years ago, Paquin found herself at a crossroads with little money and a daughter to raise on her own.

Last year, she found herself “sitting in the woods literally staring at the trees. Winter was coming. I was like: ‘What am I doing to do with myself? There was that dead raccoon on the road the other day. My cousin’s a hunter. Maybe I should just do this.’”

No fair stealing from Nike!

Paquin has never been shy about collecting animal carcasses. In 6th grade, she brought the dead animals she found by the roadside of her suburban Massachusetts home to school for dissection in the lab.

It didn’t seem weird to a kid who grew up on a dairy farm in a family that hunted and raised animals. As she put it: “We were all elbow deep in all of that.”

 One of the many ways that city and rural dwellers differ is their degrees and areas of fastidiousness. Rural folk tend to more fastidious about homosexuality, and less so about animal guts.

When she decided to start her business, her first stops were the highway department and animal control in Jaffrey, N.H. “I just made up some business cards and went around to all the local guys who are responsible for picking up roadkill and was like ‘Hi, my name is Pamela. Will you call me when you have roadkill?’”

Sure, why not?

Wombat-socho snuck in under the wire with "Rule 5 Sunday: Fightin’ Words" after a bout with trolls.

Crazy Cat Ladies - Cause or Effect?

Study: Cat Parasite Tied To Schizophrenia, Mental Illnesses

Coming into close contact with cats can spread a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) – also dubbed the “cat poop parasite” – which are linked to schizophrenia and other mental disorders that affect humans.

The cat-carried parasite is the most common in developed countries and can infect any warm-blooded species, according to the Schizophrenia Bulletin. Although most humans don’t suffer any symptoms from the widespread parasite, it can cause the illness T. gondii, which is linked to weeks of flu-like symptoms, blindness and even death, CBS News reports.

Toxoplasmosis has long been known to be a threat to the children from women who contract it in pregnancy, often causing:

eye infections, an enlarged liver and spleen, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes), and pneumonia. Some die within a few days of birth. Those who survive can have mental retardation, severely impaired eyesight, cerebral palsy, seizures and other problems.”

Lovely. Now add another reason not to have a cat:

Two new studies have now linked the T. gondii parasite to increased rates of mental illness in cat owners who may have had increased exposure to parasitic infection.

“Cat ownership in childhood has now been reported in three studies to be significantly more common in families in which the child is later diagnosed with schizophrenia or another serious mental illness,” write study authors E. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Medical Research Institute and Dr. Robert H. Yolken of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

So not only might your kid die or be blind, they might grow up crazy too.

The researchers compared two previous studies that linked childhood cat ownership and the development of schizophrenia later in life from a 1982 mental health survey. A second study by A.L. Sutterland from the Department of Psychiatry at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam reviewed 50 published studies to a T. gondii infection being tied to mental disorders.
. . .
Individuals infected with the parasite are almost twice as likely to develop schizophrenia. Links were also made with addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

There is nothing more obsessive-compulsive than collecting a shit load of cats. Maybe the disease itself has evolved to "encourage" people to take care of the vector of infections.  In rats Toxoplasmosis apparently affects their behavior to reduce their fear of predators, making them more prone to be preyed on and further pass on the infection. It's not a great leap to suppose it could affect people in a similar way. The effect could even be sex specific.

“In schizophrenia, the evidence of an association with T. gondii is overwhelming,” the authors say in a press release. “These findings may give further clues about how T. gondii infection can possibly [alter] the risk of specific psychiatric disorders.”

But the good news is that you can kill Toxoplasmosis by cooking the meat well. You might want to wear gloves while skinning the cat, though.

Wombat-socho checks in from the heat of Las Vegas with "Rule 5 Sunday: Showgirls and Other Attractions."

The Goalie

I Wonder What The Dog Was Thinking?

Oh, right, it's a dog. They don't think.

Is There Anything Edible in Here?