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Cat Defender

Exposing the Lies and Crimes of Bird Advocates, Wildlife Biologists, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, PETA, the Humane Society of the United States, Exterminators, Vivisectors, the Scientific Community, Fur Traffickers, Cloners, Breeders, Designer Pet Purveyors, Hoarders, Motorists, the United States Military, and Other Ailurophobes

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

In One of the Most Abominable Cases of Cruelty to a Cat in Recent Memory, a Vile Conductress on the Trans-Siberian Railway Hurls Twix to His Death in the Bitter Cold and Snow of Kirov

Like a Deer in the Headlights, Twix Never Knew What Hit Him

 Our employees "treat animals with great attention and love, and take care of them in every possible way on the journey."
-- a spokesperson for the RZhD
Warning: anyone with a cat should never take it aboard the Rossiyskie Zhelezyne Dorogi (RZhD). Edgar Gaifullin of the St. Petersburg area on the Baltic Sea recently made that tragic mistake and it ended up costing him the life of his beloved four-year-old ginger and white tom, Twix.

This utterly heartbreaking story began to unfold on Thursday, January 11th when he surrendered custody of Twix to his unidentified stepfather in order to care for during a grueling thirty-six-hour and two-thousand-two-hundred-twenty-eight kilometer trip from Yekaterinburg, east of the Ural Mountains, to St. Petersburg on the state-owned Russian railroad. That route is better known to westerners as the Trans-Siberian Railway although some Russians do not consider its last leg, the seven-hundred-seventy-six kilometers that separate Yaroslavl from St. Petersburg, to be part of that famous line.

That was Gaifullin's first and, sadly, last mistake in his solemn duty to have safeguarded Twix's life. Under no circumstances whatsoever should any owner ever delegate the care of his cat to another individual.

Many individuals, even family members and close friends, secretly do not like cats. Much more importantly, none of them fully comprehend how much that a cat truly means to its doting owner.

Cats additionally have enemies everywhere and they also are prone to being victimized by a host of unexpected calamities. The latter are so prevalent that it often seems that misfortune dogs a cat's very existence every bit as closely as it shadow does on a sunny day.

Even locking up a cat at home in order to go to either the office or the store is not without its inherent risks. Burglars, conflagrations, and gas leaks are just a few of the worries that sometimes materialize into full-blown disasters.

Taking a cat to a veterinarian is another nerve-racking experience in that cages sometimes fall apart en route. Besides, being grossly incompetent money-grabbers to begin with, some practitioners even have been known to allow cats to escape through windows and doors that have been inexcusably left open and unattended. (See Cat Defender post of July 2, 2010 entitled "Lexi Was By No Means the First Cat to Be Lost by Woosehill Vets Any More Than Angel Was Their First Victim of a Botched Sterilization.")

All of those perils pale in comparison with Gaifullin's utterly insane decision to have allowed Twix to have embarked on such a lengthy and arduous train journey with someone other than himself. Even so, all went well enough for approximately the first fourteen hours and six-hundred-eighty kilometers of the trip until the train closed in on Kirov, a mid-sized city of approximately half a million residents located eight-hundred-ninety-six kilometers northeast of Moscow. Then disaster struck.

The man retired, presumably, for the evening and while he was sleeping Twix either escaped from his cage or he had been carelessly left out by his traveling companion. The RZhD later claimed that the latter scenario had indeed been the case.

Regardless of whether his escape was either accidental or due to the malfeasance of his minder, Twix began to wander the passenger car. Ordinarily that would not have been any matter of grave importance except that on this occasion he soon ran into a conductress who was not only a rabid cat-hater but also an exceptionally vile and cruel human being. She reportedly did query some of the passengers in order to determine if Twix belonged to any of them but the extent of her efforts has not been disclosed.

Given that sixty per cent  of all passengers traveling on long-distance trains in Russia do so in third-class sleeping compartments that can accommodate up to fifty-six riders, it is very unlikely that her search was very extensive. She most certainly did not awaken Twix's substitute guardian and question him.

Often derisively referred to as either campsites on rails or cattle cars, these carriages feature bunk beds on both sides of a narrow aisle. They accordingly are very congested with rather limited storage space and that would have made it difficult for Twix's guardian to have hidden his cage. Any halfway diligent conductress who therefore would have been willing to have made a thorough search likely would have spotted it.

More than likely she confined her investigation to strutting and preening up and down the aisle a time or two and querying a few of those passengers who had not already gone off to the Land of Nod before calling it quits. Even more outrageously, if she had checked her tickets she readily would have learned that Twix had one and that should have been the end of the matter.

Instead, this demon of the rails ludicrously declared Twix to be a stray and began planning his demise. In that regard, she surely must have wanted him dead awfully bad because both in appearance and demeanor he shouted out to anyone with eyes and ears that he was anything but a stray: au contraire, that he was a well-cared for and highly-socialized domesticated cat.

Even if he had been a disheveled and emaciated homeless tom who had unwittingly wandered aboard, he was still entitled to humane and compassionate care from the railroad. Being poor and homeless is not normally considered to be capital offense for a man and it should not under any circumstances be one for a cat. The very idea is sheer barbarism and the absolute worst kind of animal cruelty!

So, with her warped and twisted gourd already made up, the conductress bided her sweet time until the train rolled into Kirov and then she grabbed Twix and threw him off the train and onto the snow-covered ground in -22° Fahrenheit weather. The mere fact that she was able to have gotten her murderous hands on him in the first place is further proof that she knew good and well that he was not a stray but morality and logic count for absolutely nothing with those who detest cats.

The Railroad Operates from the Sea of Japan to the Baltic

Ironically, it would have been much better for Twix if he indeed had been a stray as the conductress had slandered him. In that case, she likely never would have been able to have gotten her murderous hands on him in the first place and, if she had even tried, he hopefully would have clawed out her eyes.

Under such a scenario, the railroad would have been forced to have halted service and to have called in a local Animal Control officer in order to have trapped him. He then would have been taken to a shelter and most likely killed but even that that grossly unjust and cruel fate would have been preferable to what ultimately befell him.  

Nevertheless, it should not be against the law in Russia, as it is in ailurophobic Australia, for any cat to invoke its right to self-defense. (See Cat Defender post of August 24, 2011 entitled "Self-Defense Is Against the Law in Australia after a Woman Who Attacked a Cat Gets Away with Her Crime Whereas Her Victim Is Trapped and Executed.")

Despite what the world maintains, it is seldom a productive idea to socialize a cat too much in that a healthy distrust of all humans, including its owner, is highly beneficial to its continued survival. In that light, experience continues to demonstrate time and time again that is precisely those cats that are the most favorably disposed toward those beasts that strut around on two legs who are abused the worst. (See Cat Defender post of July 14, 2016 entitled "Missy, Who Was Too Kindly Disposed Toward Humans for Her Own Good, Is Memorialized in Wood at the Bus Stop That She Called Home for Almost a Decade.") 

The order to events that transpired next is not exactly clear. Most likely, the stepfather awakened from his ill-advised slumber and went in search of Twix. Whether that was while the train was still stopped in Kirov or further up the line is unknown.

When confronted the conductress initially claimed that Twix had simply absconded but once videos,  either from CCTV footage taken at the train station or those taken by private citizens on their cell phones, were posted on social media the following day showing someone throwing a cat off of the train she was unmasked as a bare-faced liar and immediately suspended from work by the RZhD. The existence of the videos points to the inescapable conclusion that not only private citizens but also employees of the rail depot in Kirov knew immediately what cruel fate had befallen Twix.

Yet, apparently none of them intervened in order to have rescued him. Contrary to what most individuals believe, cell phones do have other usages besides voyeurism, morbid curiosity, and the pursuit of fame and fortune by posting online.

At the very least, some of them should have notified the police and the railroad concerning what they had witnessed before Twix had gotten too far out of sight. At that early stage of this unfolding life and death drama it might still have been preeminently possible to have saved him.

Someone, presumably the stepfather, notified Gaifullin about what had happened and on January 12th he contacted Renterin Olga Kudriashova who organized a search party that soon included up to five-thousand cat-lovers. By contrast, even if a feline as famous as either Morris, Heathcliff, or Garfield were to tragically disappear in the United States it would be extremely difficult to round up even as many as a dozen volunteers who would be willing to search for him on a warm and sunny day, let alone to have trudged through the deep snow, howling wind, and bitter sub-zero temperatures of Kirov in January.

She also began posting about Twix on social media and that led to, at last count, three-hundred-eighty-thousand residents signing a petition urging the RZhD to fire the conductress. Another one-hundred-thousand citizens put their names to a second petition calling for a criminal investigation to be opened concerning the incident.

Gaifullin offered a reward of  30,000 (US$341.00) for information relating to Twix's whereabouts and the story of what was done to him spread like wildfire through both the local and state-controlled media as well as social media.

Finally on Saturday, January 20th, Twix's lifeless body was found frozen and stiff as a board in the snow by an unidentified male volunteer. It also had an unspecified number of bite marks on it and the paw prints of a dog were clearly visible in the nearby snow.

It is unlikely, however, that he was killed by a dog. In -22° Fahrenheit weather, he likely would not have lasted more than a few hours at best without shelter and heat.

Due to the amount of snow on the ground, the going would have been slow and exhausting, especially if it were deep and, possibly, frozen. His paws would have been the first to have frozen and soon thereafter hypothermia surely would have claimed his life.

The dog likely came along later and attempted in vain to have devoured his frozen corpse. That is mere supposition, however, and only a necropsy could have pinpointed exactly the actual cause of his death but it is unlikely that one was performed.

The Associated Press reported on January 21st that his body was found a little more than eight-tenths of a kilometer from the train station but it neglects to specify either on which side of the depot or which side of the tracks. (See "A Pet Cat Thrown Off of a Train Died in Cold Weather. Now Thousands Want the Conductor to Lose Her Job.")

A Typical Third-Class Dormer Car on the Trans-Siberian Railway

If canine footprints were visible in the snow, so too should have been Twix's but press reports have not made any mention of that having been the case. Under such hellish circumstances, most cats' first instinct surely would have been to have sought shelter in the direction of the depot so his tracks should have been heading in that direction.

The fact that his body was found so far from the depot is one indication that the conductress may have forcibly evicted him from the train, not while it was stopped in Kirov, but rather either before it entered the station or soon after it had departed from it. In any case, she should have been immediately taken into custody and given the third degree by the authorities as to where and exactly when she had thrown Twix from the train.

It also is more than likely that Twix was severely injured as the result of being physically thrown from a moving train. He sans doute would have been disoriented and frightened to death long before he ever hit the snow-covered ground.

Without knowing anything about his past and life with Gaifullin, it is a difficult matter to speculate about but it is entirely possible that he was ill-equipped to have dealt with the outdoor world, especially the bitter cold and snow. He even could have been previously declawed.

As is the case with socializing a cat to the point that it loses its fear of humans, it likewise is a terrible mistake to denature a cat. Cats need to know how to survive on their own and that most definitely includes a willingness and an ability to use their claws and teeth.

That is especially the case given that so many of them are routinely abandoned by their heartless owners to the streets and woods. Moreover, countless numbers of them accidentally become separated from their owners and wind up on their own. 

In a story that is every bit as heartbreaking as what happened to Twix, on December 26, 2014 a beautiful,  ten-year-old tom named Nicky with long orange-colored fur somehow escaped from his home in Lorain, Ohio. It never was explained how that happened but it is suspected that the fact that it was Boxing Day somehow factored into that equation.

Compounding that tragedy, his owner, Candice Darmafall, had not only cruelly declawed and sterilized him but she also had kept him locked up indoors for all of his life. He accordingly was completely lacking in the survival skills that he needed in order to have persevered for long on his own in an alien environment.

Worst of all, the elements were against him in that winters in Ohio are brutal. Even with all of that against him he was still able to somehow have survived on his own until he was rescued on Thursday, January 15th by an unidentified family in Amherst, eight kilometers south of Lorain.

He then was rushed to the Friendship Animal Protection League (FAPL) of Elyria, fifteen kilometers west of Amherst, but by then it was almost too late to have done anything for him. "It was completely frozen. The cat was basically stiff as a board," Greg Willey of the charity related. "The best way for me to describe it is that it looked like it came out of a meat locker."

His first instinct was to have killed off Nicky on the spot which is not the least bit surprising for anyone who is in the habit of referring to a cat in the third person neuter. When Nicky stirred, however, he changed his mind and transferred him to the Fox Veterinary Hospital in Carlisle Township, seven kilometers south of Elyria.

"The poor cat came to me completely flat out; we thought he was dead," veterinarian Ashley Berardi said. "(His) temperature was low beyond normal, so low it wouldn't even register on the thermometer."

She placed him on a heating pad, bandaged his frostbitten paws, and placed him on intravenous fluids and painkillers. By Friday, January 16th, his body temperature had returned to normal and he miraculously was back on his feet.

Nothing good ever lasts for long in this wretched old world, however, and a day later it was announced that he was dead. No explanation was ever publicly given for his dramatic reversal in fortunes but there seems to be little doubt that Darmafall and Fox belatedly decided to kill him off.

During the twenty-one days that he spent alone and on the streets the thermometer was below the freezing mark on twenty of them. On four of those days it was below 0° Fahrenheit and on another four of them it was in the single digits.

Plus, it snowed on twelve of those days and rained on another four of them. Without food, water, shelter, and heat, it is amazing that he persevered for as long as he did and that in turn makes it all the more infuriating that Darmafall and Fox gave up on him so soon and killed him off.

Although He Initially Rebounded, Nicky Was Killed Off by the Vets

"I just thought, gosh, there's no way he can make it because he's been inside with us all these years," Darmafall predicted but in that assessment she was completely wrong. Furthermore, his demise demonstrates writ large once again that owners and veterinarians pose an even far greater threat to cats than even do the merciless cruelties doled out to them by Old Man Winter. (See Cat Defender post of February 2, 2015 entitled "Cruelly Denatured and Locked Up Indoors for All of His Life, Nicky Is Suddenly Thrust into the Bitter Cold and Snow for Twenty-One Consecutive Days with Predictably Tragic Results.")  

None of that is meant to in any way imply that the cold, ice, and snow do not take a god-awful toll on cats, especially when they are combined with animal cruelty as was the case with Twix. (See Cat Defender posts of March 5, 2007, December 9, 2008, May 8, 2009, January 21, 2010, April 8, 2010, February 23, 2015, March 14, 2015, May 13, 2015, March 23, 2019, and July 10, 2022 entitled, respectively, "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman," "Shaved from Head to Tail and Left to Freeze to Death in the Ontario Cold, Chopper Is Saved at the Last Minute," "Domino, Feral and All Alone, Faces an Uncertain Future in Wisconsin Following an Unplanned Trip to Arizona," "Trapped Outdoors in a Snowstorm, Annie Is Brought Back from the Dead by the Compassion of a Good Samaritan and an Animal Control Officer," "A Frozen Food Purveyor Knowingly Condemns Frosty to Spend Five Weeks in Its 28° Fahrenheit Warehouse Without Either Food or Water," "Abandoned to Tough It Out by His Lonesome in the Deadly Michigan Cold and Snow, Flick Sustains Horrific Injuries to His Front Paws When They Become Frozen to a Porch," "Ace Is Found Frozen to a Porch with His Eyes Goughed Out but the Authorities Are Too Lazy, Cheap, and Ailurophobic to Go After His Assailant," "Bubba Is Condemned to Spend Forty Days Trapped Underneath a Snow-Covered Porch after Her Uncaring Owners Prematurely Wrote Her Off as Being Dead," "Fluffy Is Brought Back from the Dead after She Is Found Comatose in a Sarcophagus of Frozen Snow and Ice in Frigid Montana," and "Intentionally Blinded, Crippled, and Abandoned to Freeze to Death in a Locked Cage at a Rest Stop on Interstate 95 in Connecticut, Highway Not Only Perseveres but Now Has Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow.")

The data are contradictory but it nevertheless is believed that the bitter cold that Twix was exposed to in Kirov was perhaps as much as seventeen degrees colder than what Nicky endured in Ohio. It has not proven possible to ascertain how much snow fell in either Kirov or Ohio while Trix and Nicky were fighting for their lives.

It is known, however, that Kirov normally receives an average of seventeen inches (forty-four centimeters) of snow each January with the thermometer generally hovering most of the time between 6° and 17° Fahrenheit. Compounding an already almost hopeless situation to begin with, the Weather Underground has reported that between January 11th and January 20th the city was buffeted by alternating periods of light and heavy snow.

The wind and bitter cold were unrelenting and overnight temperatures ranged from -5° to 10° Fahrenheit between January 11th and January 15th. That is strikingly at odds with press reports that maintain that it was -22° Fahrenheit on January 11th.

Daytime highs could do no better than 3° to 10° Fahrenheit. Temperatures moderated considerably between January 16th and January 20th with readings ranging from 2° overnight to daytime highs in the low to high twenties. It is remotely conceivable that Twix could have survived if he had somehow been able to have made it through the first five days, but without shelter and food even that is highly improbable.

It is also possible that he could have attempted to have gotten out of the snow by returning to the tracks but if he had done so he quickly would have been a dead duck because the Trans-Siberian Railway is fully electrified. Once again, only a necropsy would be able to determine if he had been electrocuted.

It additionally is mystifying that it took that many volunteers so long in order to have located his corpse. Although it could have been covered up by the drifting snow, they should have been aware not only that missing cats do not travel far but also that under such inclement conditions Twix could not possibly have gotten very far from the vicinity of the depot.

Still, a half-mile radius is a rather large section of ground to have covered, especially under such trying conditions. It would have been a real long shot at best, but if the railroad and the police had been willing to have brow-beaten the truth out of the conductress as to exactly where she had evicted Twix it just might have been possible for the volunteers to have reached him in time to have saved his life.

Only one thing is certain and that is that it is difficult to imagine any cat dying a death that was any more prolonged, terrifying, and excruciating painful than the one that the conductress condemned him to die. Since cats are every bit as capable as humans of experiencing pain and rational thought, his brain surely must have been racked during his final hours trying to comprehend why the evil conductress had treated him so vilely.

He had never done anything to her. In fact, he had never seen her before in his life.

His soul no doubt was tortured by thoughts of why Gaifullin had abandoned him to such a cruel fate and when, and if, he would be arriving on the scene in order to save him. It is not unreasonable to think that before he closed his eyes for the final time that his thoughts returned to his home near St. Petersburg and to the happy years that he had spent there.

Then the deadly, unrelenting, and unyielding cold stilled his noble heart. To even contemplate what he was forced to endure during his last hours on this earth is painful. 

In the aftermath of his death the RZhD wasted little time in pulling out all the dodges that it could think of in order to save its reputation and rubles. It began, however, by descending into absurdity.

Our employees "treat animals with great attention and love, and take care of them in every possible way on the journey," it ludicrously declared on social media according to the January 20th account of the BBC. (See "Russia: Cat Thrown Off Train into Snow Found Dead.")

It went on to add that some (but not how many) of its employees had participated in the search. It additionally stated that one of its subsidiaries, but not which one, was looking into teaming up with animal welfare agencies across Russia in order to help homeless animals.

When absolutely no one believed so much as a solitary syllable of such outrageous hogwash, the railroad switched tactics and offered a simple apology. "We sincerely regret the death of Twix the cat and apologize to his owners (sic)," it announced on social media according the Associated Press.

Neko Was Deliberately Killed by an SNCF Train in Paris

Belatedly realizing that considerably more was expected from it, the railroad vowed not to allow another cat to fall victim to what was done to Twix. "To ensure similar incidents will not happen in the future, amendments are being made to the documents used to transport pets on long-distance trains," the Associated Press reported it as declaring on social media. "Conductors will be prohibited from disembarking animals from carriages: instead animals will be handed to station workers who can contact animal welfare groups."

None of the railroad's self-serving sottise is sufficient, however; on the contrary, it must provide Twix with a measure of justice and that most definitely includes publicly identifying and firing the conductress. It additionally must compensate Gaifullin handsomely for his irredeemable loss.

Russia does have laws against cruelty to animals but, like in every other country on the face of the earth, they are strictly beau geste and seldom, if ever, enforced. Therefore, it is a sure bet that the conductress definitely will not be punished and she in all likelihood will be allowed to keep her job with the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Officials in Kirov have already swept the matter under the rug by refusing to even arrest her. On January 22d the State Duma (the lower house of Parliament) in Moscow convened a meeting in order to discuss the rules for transporting animals on trains but that had absolutely nothing to do with bringing the conductress to justice. (See The Moscow Times of Amsterdam, January 22, 2024, "How a Cat Thrown Off a Train Became a National Scandal in Russia.")

Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, which looks into corruption involving the police as well as local and state officials, reportedly has opened an investigation into the killing of Twix but nothing beneficial is expected to come out of it. "A criminal case into the incident has been opened, but not in relation into any specific individual," Gaifullin's unidentified attorney later confirmed to The Moscow Times on January 25th. (See "Russia Launches Animal Cruelty Investigation into Cat's Death.") "Experience shows that punishment comes as a fine, not as a prison sentence."

With a criminal indictment and prosecution of the supremely evil conductress being all but out of the question, Gaifullin has turned his attention to the civil courts where he is planning on suing the railroad for killing Twix. The company likely will offer him some small token of satisfaction, such as a pair of complimentary tickets, in order to shut him up and to make him go away but that is all. Hopefully, the presiding judge will feel differently. 

The railroad's chief executive officer, Oleg Belozerov, has already poured cold water on the idea of monetarily compensating Gaifullin by labeling his company's killing of Twix as force majeure. "I have two dogs and a cat at home," he confessed to The New York Times on February 2nd. (See "What You Can Still Complain about in Russia: A Cat Thrown from a Train.") "Could anyone compensate me for their loss? I'm not sure."

What an outrageous load of baloney! His employee's cold-blooded and premeditated killing of Twix was neither an act of the gods nor a natural disaster but rather a willful, deliberate, and totally preventable criminal act. Belozerov and his subalterns are as guilty as sin and Gaifullin is richly entitled to monetary compensation and a lot of it.

With his death, Twix thus has become the second known cat within the short span of a calendar year to have been intentionally and ruthlessly murdered by a state-owned railroad. The other one was a beautiful longhaired brown and white male with sad green eyes named Neko who was deliberately run down and sliced in half by a Train à grande vitesse (TGV) operated by La Société nationale des chemins de fer francais (SNCF) at Gare Montparnasse in Paris on January 2nd of last year.

Under circumstances eerily similar to those that befell Twix, Neko's undoing began when his guardians, Georgia Mylona and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Melanïa, either took him out of his sacoche or he somehow managed to have gotten out of it on his own while they were waiting on the platform in order to return to their home in Bordeaux in southern France after having been in Paris in order to have rung out the old and rung in the new year. Frightened by all the noise, people, and confusion, he bolted down onto the electrified tracks.

The Mylonas spent the following harrowing twenty minutes attempting to persuade the train's crew to cut off the electricity and to mount a rescue. When that failed to have moved the obstinate crew, they sought permission to go and fetch him themselves but that offer also was refused.

"Ce n'est qu' un chat, ce n'est pas notre problème," Melanïa later reported the crew as telling her. "Les agents nous disent qu' on aurait dû le garder en laisse."

The crew's insanely cruel and heartless attitude sealed Neko's fate. Almost as terrifying, Melanïa had a front row seat in order to witness the cold-blooded execution of her beloved companion.

"On l'a vu en train de courir en dessous du train. C'est la dernière fois que je l'ai vu en vie," she afterwards related. "Il (Neko) m'a regardé dans les yeux car il a dû m'entendre. Il a continué à courir puis c'etait fini."

No one can even begin to contemplate the absolute horror that coursed through her mind at that moment. Although what happened to Twix was bad enough in its own right, at least Gaifullin was spared the agony of watching Twix slowly freezing to death in the bitter cold and snow.

The members of the crew of the SNCF, who moments earlier were in such a hellfire hurry in order to have gotten underway that they were more than willing to have committed murder, suddenly slammed on the brakes and dispatched a party in order to gather up Neko's remains along the track and that further incensed Georgia. "Je ne comprendre pas: on ne pouvait pas descendre pour sauver notre chat vivant, mais il est maintenant possible de la récupérer mort," she indignantly retorted.

With the assistance of the charity 30 Millions d'amis, the Mylonas brought charges against the SNCF and the case was heard by an unidentified police court in Paris on June 19, 2023 but the verdict was not publicly announced until July 4th. At that time, Le Président of the tribunal found the railroad guilty of "atteinte involontaire à la vie ou à l'intégrité d'un animal domestique."

There Never Will Be Any Justice for Twix...

That was, of course, ridiculous because what the railroad had done to Neko was anything but involuntary. Le Président even backhandedly admitted as much when he condemned the SNCF for failing to have have taken "de moyens humains nécessaires pour récupérer le chat."

The only bit of justice that he gave Georgia and Melanïa was to have ordered the railroad to pay them €1,000 each in compensation. Regrettably, he turned down a demand made by them and 30 Milllions d'amis that he refer the case to a tribunal correctionnel where the crew of the train could have faced, possibly, jail time for "sérvices graves et actes de cruauté."

As was the case with Twix, the fact the Neko was a paying passenger with a ticket made absolutely no difference to the train's crew. Unlike the RZhD which has pledged to stop forcibly evicting cats from its trains in the future, there has not been any such declaration on the part of the SNCF to stop running down those that accidentally find themselves on its tracks.

Many Frenchmen are not only obstinate and incorrigible but they also have a long and inglorious history of not only burning and eating cats but of cruelly walling them up alive underneath their houses. "Workmen in France were at one time accustomed before laying the last board in a floor to intern underneath it a living cat; this ceremony was supposed to carry good fortune to the inmates of the house," Carl Van Vechten wrote in his 1920 masterpiece, The Tiger in the House. "In demolishing old mansions in Paris the dried remains of pussies convulsed in suffering that they endured in dying are often found."

As the cold-blooded murder of Neko by the SNCF has demonstrated, the French's treatment of cats has not improved all that much since medieval days. Furthermore, their mistreatment of the species stands in stark contrast to that of the ancient Egyptians who buried their beloved and revered cats with them when they died. (See Cat Defender post of July 23, 2023 entitled "Arguing That He Was Only a Cat, the French National Railroad, SNCF, Proceeds to Run Down and Kill Neko at Gare Montparnasse in Paris and, Unbelievably, Is Allowed to Get Away with Its Heinous Crime.")

Seemingly no major story concerning either an individual cat or the species itself would ever be complete without that all-time champion of one-sided, scurrilous journalism, The New York Times, turning up johnny-on-the-spot like a bad penny and deliberately distorting both the narrative and the truth in order to advance its own perverse ailurophobic agenda. Whereas this was first and last a tale concerning an unspeakable act of barbaric cruelty that was perpetrated against a defenseless cat and the Russian people's reaction to it, The New York Times transformed it into a diatribe against Twix and the species while simultaneously seizing another opportunity in order to malign the Russian people in general and the government of President Vladimir V. Putin in particular.

In the past, The New York Times never has had anything positive to say about cats; rather, it has gone far out of its way in order to take the side ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and others who are attempting to eradicate the species from the face of the earth. (See Cat Defender posts of December 8, 2007, July 9, 2018, and June 22, 2018 entitled, respectively, "All the Lies That Fit: The Scheming New York Times Hires a Bird Lover to Render His 'Unbiased' Support for James M. Stevenson," "The Slimy, Underhanded, and Utterly Despicable New York Times Fabricates Another One-Sided, Scurrilous Screed Against Cats and This Time Around the Target of Its Libels Is a TNR Colony at the Googleplex in Mountain View," and "As Their Colleagues Across the United States Continue to Defame and Wage War Against the Species, a Handful of Correspondents for The New York Times Are Hypocritically Turning to Cats for Their Salvation and Deliverance.")

This time around the rag called upon Russian ex-pat Anatoly Kurmanaev of Novosibirsk in Siberia in order to do its dirty work for it and he certainly did not disappoint his paymasters. While to his credit  he did not choose to follow in the well-trodden footsteps of his colleagues at the Times by blaming cats for all that is wrong with the world, he certainly did not have anything positive to say about them in general, Twix in particular, and especially the Russians' fondness for them.

He kicked off his assault upon the truth by falsely claiming that the conductress "mistakenly" threw Twix off the train and that she "mistook" him for a stray. From that inauspicious beginning, he proceeded to cast aspersions on his fellow countrymen's love for the species.

Although he does admit that roughly half of Russia's population of one-hundred-forty-four million residents do own cats, he nevertheless concludes that their outrage over what was done to Twix was fueled, not by ailurophilia, but rather rank political opportunism.

C'est-à-dire, since they are unable to complain openly about the inconclusive war in Ukraine, the high cost of living, and a thousand other things due to a fear of reprisals from the authorities in Moscow, they chose to let off steam about the death of a cat. He therefore cavalierly dismisses the public's response to the killing of Twix as amounting to little more than "part catharsis (and) part political theater."

"This story has lowered the (political) temperature, and helped to shift the attention from the gloom," he proudly quotes pollster Denis Volkov of the Levada Center in Moscow as declaring.

He then dredges up Boris B. Nadezhdin, an anti-war political opponent of Putin, in order to challenge the notion that the Russian people's outrage over what was done to Twix was genuine. "The country has missed being able to express itself freely, and to be humane," he told The New York Times. "To express support for a kitty that you have never seen in your life is to show humanity."

That is to say, according to The New York Times, in order to empathize with a cat a person has to be intimately acquainted with it. Yet, the imperious New York Times has anointed itself with an unqualified right to defame all members of the species, none of which it is even remotely acquainted with, and to champion their eradication.

While it is true that Russia does have a simply terrible animal rights record, so too does every other country in the world. Russians gobble down billions of cows, pigs, chickens, fish, and other animals each year without so much as an iota of remorse. They slaughter countless more for their fur and the country has its share of scum-of-the-earth vivisectors. Additionally, those animals that are exploited in business and recreation enjoy few if any protections.

That is why World Animal Protection's Animal Protection Index of London gave the country a grade of "F" in 2014. In 2020, the charity upgraded the country's overall rating to a modest "D" although it still received an "F" for its abhorrent mistreatment of laboratory animals.

With that being the case coupled with the fact that cats are treated like dirt everywhere, there is, admittedly, more than ample reason to question the sincerity of the Russian people's love for cats but much more information is needed before Kurmanaev's assertions to the contrary can be accepted. For example, how are homeless cats treated in Russia?

... and the Happy Times Are Over Forever for Him

Are they allowed to live or are they rounded up and systematically exterminated? Is TNR practiced? Is low-cost sterilization readily available?

Much more importantly, what are the kill-rates at both shelters and veterinary clinics? Is veterinary care for cats even remotely competent, available, and affordable?

Other crucial concerns are the rate at which citizens abandon their cats and the number of cases of cruelty to them that are reported each year. Furthermore, do the authorities even bother to investigate these types of utterly despicable crimes?

It also would be good to know the number of cats that are tortured to death in governmental and collegiate research laboratories each year. Also, do Russians eat cats and traffic in their pelts?

Perhaps most importantly of all, are governmental officials, the degree mills, ornithologists, and wildlife biologists allowed to use the media in order to denigrate and eradicate cats as do their colleagues in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa? For what it is worth, World Animal Protection's Animal Protection Index in 2020 gave Russia a "C" for its treatment of companion animals. 

Without knowing the answers to any of those fundamental questions it is difficult to determine with any degree of exactitude if the public's reaction to the killing of Twix was heartfelt or, as Kurmanaev and The New York Times maintain, political opportunism. That which is not in doubt, however, is that the Times never will pass up an opportunity in order to denigrate the species and their supporters.

Likewise, the Sulzburger gang never will forego any opportunity in order to shill for American imperialists and capitalists and that most definitely includes libeling Russia and the Russian people to the hilt. For instance, the coverage of Joe Biden's proxy was against Russia in Ukraine by these professional liars with a printing press has been so one-sided that it would be laughable if the conflict were not claiming so many lives, both animal and human, on both sides and causing so much destruction and environmental degradation.

Finally, Kurmanaev and The New York Times have the unmitigated gall to heap scorn and ridicule not only upon what that they have termed as Putin's "disproportionate" response to the killing of Twix but also upon his opposition to "inappropriate (and) immoral behavior." That is indeed rich, but hardly surprising, coming as it does from a newspaper and a country that is totally morally and intellectually bankrupt.

After all, it most assuredly is not Russia that is currently actively engaged in the commission of animalcide, genocide, the destruction of the earth, and the wholesale theft of real estate in Gaza, but rather the phony-baloney United States of America. Nobody ever bothers to look up the historical record, but the United States has always behaved that way.

"You wander the world trying to be -- how does the slang go -- the good guys and you are despised for your bungling, hated for your wealth, and ridiculed and mocked for your posturing," Ross Thomas wrote of the yankee imperialists way back in 1966 in his book, The Cold War Swap. "Your CIA would be a laughingstock, except that it controls enough funds to corrupt a government, finance a revolution, subvert a political party."

If Kurmanaev truly believes that the supremely dishonest newspaper that he toils for is a cut above TASS and Izvestia, he sure has an awful lot to learn. Moreover, if he is so dazzled by all the bright lights of Times Square as to believe that the United States is a beacon of free speech, free press, fair elections, democracy, equality, and enlightenment where animal, environmental, and human rights are held to be sacrosanct, he is more than welcome to his fantasies but at the same time he should take care not to confound a stuffed wallet and a full belly for the unvarnished truth.

Just as a cook is not always the best judge of a feast, so too is it that the well-to-do speak only for themselves and for absolutely nobody and nothing else. Also, if he should ever sober up from his intoxication with the piranha of the west, he might want to look up Ambrose Bierce's definition of an immigrant in his 1906 tome, The Devil's Dictionary.

Worst still, by trashing his homeland he is denigrating a people who, with untold sacrifice, defeated both Napoleon and Hitler while still bequeathing to the world Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. By contrast, the United States has had little more to show than Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis.

Besides, it would not make so much as a jot of difference even if America were capable of producing any literary geniuses because the fascists who control the book publishing business only accept for publication those manuscripts that flatter their own prejudices, interests, and baseness. Criticism of the state is either not allowed altogether or is drowned out by big money and its stranglehold upon American society.

Russia additionally has given to the world composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, and others. On the other side of the ledger, the United States has had little to offer other than Lawrence Welk and a bloated and drugged out of his gourd Elvis. With so many notable literary and musical virtuosos, the Russian people surely must be doing something right but readers of The New York Times would be left with the impression that they are totally lacking in all merit and that the country as a whole does not have any right to even exist. 

No mention has been made in press reports as to what was done with Twix's remains so it is doubtful that Gaifullin reclaimed them and therefore provided his cat with the dignified internment that he so richly deserved. The Mylonas were offered Neko's remains but they refused to take them back home to Bordeaux with them for burial, thus demonstrating that he was "n'est qu' un chat" as far as they too were concerned after earlier having berated the SNCF for maintaining the same thing.

The status of cats everywhere is indeed glum and there is not so much as a scintilla of hope for any improvement on the horizon. In reality, there is precious little decency, compassion, and justice to be found anywhere on this earth.

With that being the case, the only thing left to do is to mourn the terrible and irreplaceable loss of such a young and handsome cat as Twix. Even in doing so, there is not any escaping the unforgiving reality that, as it is the case with all those who have been unjustly killed, there in all likelihood never will be any rest for his spirit.

Photos: The Moscow Times (Twix in a playpen, on top of a chair, and lolling on his back), the Trans-Siberian Express (map), Prince of Travel of Ontario, Canada (dormer carriage), the Friendship Animal Protection League (Nicky), and Le Parisien (Neko).


Monday, February 05, 2024

The Vicious and Unprovoked Attack Upon Pudding Once Again Demonstrates That Birds Kill Cats as Do Ornithologists and Wildlife Biologists

Pudding Twice Defied Death in a Matter of Minutes

"She was limping badly and had a nasty cut on her shoulder. It was feared she had a broken leg."
-- Exeter City Council
On Monday, July 3rd of last year a beautiful calico named Pudding was minding her own business when she was savagely attacked and seriously injured by a flock of seagulls in Exeter, a city of one-hundred-thirty-one-thousand residents that is located three-hundred-thirty-one kilometers southwest of London in Devonshire. Although she was able to have survived the initial onslaught, she subsequently narrowly missed being run down and killed by a bus driver while fleeing her pursuers.

The unprovoked attack occurred at the Exton Road Recycling Centre where Pudding has lived for a "few years." She spends her nights in a winterized shelter provided by Cats Protection that is located between the trash dump and the recycling center, both of which are operated by Devon County.

She additionally has a second shelter nearby that is located outside Exeter City Council's Oakwood House. Press reports have not specified either where or when the attack took place, only that Pudding was found "a while later" by staffers from the recycling center cowering in one of her shelters.

The mere fact that staffers were immediately aware that she nearly had been run down and killed by a bus driver is one indication that the attack occurred during working hours but it does not adequately explain why that it took so long for them to have checked on her well-being. As it turned out, by the time that they reached her she had been bloodied and was in a good deal of pain.

The recycling staffers did what they could for her before telephoning Cats Protection's Exeter Axhayes Adoption Centre which came and collected her. At that juncture, Puddings' prognosis did not look promising.

"She was limping badly and had a nasty cut on her shoulder," Exeter City Council announced a day later on July 4th in a press release. (See "Exeter Bin Crews Pay for Stray Cat's Treatment after Seagull Attack.") "It was feared she had a broken leg."

Although Puddings' pain was real enough and she had indeed suffered a terrible fright, fortunately the cut on her shoulder inflicted by the predatory birds turned out not to have been too serious although it did require stitching up. Nothing further has been said about her injured leg.

Pudding Is Too Beautiful of a Cat to Be Without Protection

She apparently was held overnight at Cats Protection where she was administered antibiotics and, perhaps, painkillers. By Tuesday morning, she had been returned to her box at the Exton Road Recycling Centre.

"I was so worried when she got hurt, but I've just been to see her in the recycling centre, where she's recovering while on antibiotics, and she trotted over to me all happy," Zena, who works for the Exeter City Council, later told the BBC on July 7, 2023. (See "Exeter Recycling Staff Pay Stray Cat's Vet Bill after Gull Attack.") "She wanted to follow me back when I left and it was quite heartbreaking to leave her."
 
Zena was equally happy to have a valued "member of the team" back with her and on the mend. "We are pleased she made a good recovery from her injuries and is now happily settled back in the place she calls home," she continued to the BBC. "She loves a cuddle and she comes and sits on my lap when I eat my lunch outside."

The garbage collectors and the office staff of Exeter City Council along with, possibly, members of the recycling staff passed the hat and that measure soon raised £100 in order to satisfy the veterinary tab that Pudding had run up with Cats Protection. Seven months have passed since the attack and nothing further has appeared online concerning her.

Presumably she is still alive and residing at the Exton Road Recycling Centre. Her situation is hardly ideal, however, and she remains in grave peril.

First of all, predatory birds are to be found everywhere, including urban landscapes, but they are particularly attracted to landfills and trash dumps. Compounding an already dangerous situation to begin with, municipalities often here raptors to patrol their landfills.

For example, on August 8, 2011 a hawk hired by PK Bird Control Services to patrol a city dump in Cedar on Vancouver Island snatched and later dropped a young black kitten subsequently dubbed Hawk. Discovered by an employee of PK, he was rushed to Island Veterinary Hospital in Nanaimo where he was diagnosed to have suffered multiple puncture wounds to his stomach as well as an injured paw.

A Raptor Came Awfully Close to Killing Hawk

After treatment, he was transferred to the Nanaimo SPCA where he eventually recovered from his injuries and was adopted later that autumn. Two other kittens, likely Hawk's littermates, were not nearly so fortunate.

The hawk killed one of them by piercing its skull and the other one with bites to its neck. The kittens' mother also sustained unspecified injuries but lived. (See Cat Defender post of February 12, 2012 entitled "Hawk Suffers Puncture Wounds to His Stomach and One Paw When He Is Abducted by a Raptor Hired to Patrol a City Dump on Vancouver Island.")

Even more revolting, the main reason that cats and kittens so often wind up in landfills and trash dumps in the first place is that they have been thrown out in the trash by their utterly despicable owners. (See Cat Defender posts of August 23, 2007, March 23, 2009, October 3, 2009, February 24, 2010, February 25, 2010, May 4, 2010, October 14, 2011, May 12, 2017, December 17, 2023, and January 1, 2024 entitled, respectively, "An Alert Scrap Metal Worker Discovers a Pretty 'Penny' Hidden in a Mound of Rubble," "Mistakenly Tossed Out with the Trash, Autumn Survives a Harrowing Trip to the City Dump in Order to Live Another Day," "Deliberately Entombed Inside a Canvas Bag for Six Days, Duff Is Saved by a Pair of Alert Maintenance Workers at an Apartment Complex in Spokane," "Sealed Up in a Backpack Inside a Plastic Bag and Then Tossed in the Trash, Titch Is Rescued by a Passerby in Essex," "Bess Twice Survives Attempts Made on Her Life Before Landing on All Four Paws at a Pub in Lincolnshire," "Picked Up by a Garbage Truck Driver and Dumped with the Remainder of the Trash, Alfie Narrowly Misses Being Recycled," "Chucked Out in the Trash, Tabitha Winds Up in an Oxygen Chamber with Four Broken Ribs, an Injured Leg, and Pneumonia," "Miracle Maisy Is Bound and Tied, Soaked in Petrol, Sealed Up in a Plastic Bag, and Then Run Through a Trash Compactor but, Amazingly, Is Still Alive Thanks to a Pair of Compassionate Garbagemen," "Thrown Out in the Trash by His Owners and Then Condemned to Die by the Veterinarians, Asher Is Saved in His Darkest Hour by the RSPCA in Its Finest Hour," and "Seventeen Cats Are Found Dead in a Dumpster in Nashville in the Latest Sorry Chapter of Southerners' Longstanding Loathing for the Species.") 

In one way or the other, it always has been their owners who have been their number one enemy. "Another of the most inveterate and selfish enemies of the cat is the supposed friend who goes to Palm Beach in the winter or Lake Placid in the summer and leaves puss alone in the city to shift for himself or the tender-hearted lady who says, 'I just can't bear to drown these sweet kittens'," Carl Van Vechten observed in his 1920 seminal work, The Tiger in the House. "So she takes the unweaned babies away from their mother and leaves them in some public garden where they will meet a cruel death in the hands of boys or the jaws of dogs, and the mother cat suffers not only from the loss of her offspring but from a milk disease as well."

It has not been divulged how that Pudding ended up at the city dump in Exeter. She could have been either intentionally dumped there or abandoned in the vicinity and afterwards wandered in own her own.

It also is possible that she arrived inside a garbage truck and somehow miraculously eluded being both crushed to death and recycled herself. That which is clear, however, is that something drastic needs to be done in order to stop owners from using the trash in order to get rid of their unwanted cats.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown this problem has become so prolific in both England and the United States that even so much as taking out the trash has evolved into a dreaded affair. Individuals toss their refuse into either trash cans or Dumpsters and before they even know what is afoot four or five traumatized and frightened cats and kittens come tearing out of boxes and bags and flee into the night never to be either seen or heard from again. No one knows what ultimately becomes of these ill-fated cats and kittens but it is highly improbable that The Fates are kind to them.

Blackie Was Rescued by John Bellshaw

Almost as depressing, an individual would need to have a catch pole with him  and to be especially fleet of foot in order to have so much as a prayer of catching any of them. It is a sickening and crushing experience that causes a person to question his own self-worth.

The cops are quite obviously never going to so much as lift a lousy finger in order to apprehend the individuals who commit these types of horrific crimes. Likewise, the only thing that shelters and feline rescue groups have to offer is meaningless palaver.

Garbage collectors in both countries are doing what they can but they urgently need to be doing considerably more and that most definitely includes searching and radiographing the refuse that they collect. Above all, the merciless killing of tens of thousands of cats and kittens in the trash each year is a damning indictment of the turpitude of owners and public officials alike in both England and the United States. 

The former need to be identified, jailed, and never permitted to come near another cat for so long as they live. If shelters are either too inept or irresponsible in order to secure morally responsible individuals to care for their homeless cats they need to shift their resources away from adoptions and instead invest them in establishing sanctuaries.

Three years earlier in July of 2008 another kitten, this time a five-week-old one named Blackie, was snatched from her mother's side by a black-beaked gull at Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde in Faslane, sixty-five kilometers north of Glasgow. The gull afterwards dropped her on top of a barbed-wire fence where she became impaled.

Luckily for her, John Bellshaw, a pest control officer with the Ministry of Defense, and PC David Duffton were able with considerable effort to have successfully freed her from the barbed wire and that ultimately saved her life. Even then Blackie's paws were badly cut up and she had lost a considerable amount of blood and fur.

She later was adopted by Duffton but a trio of her siblings vanished and their disappearance has been blamed the same gull. (See Cat Defender post of August 14, 2008 entitled "Birds Killing Cats: Blackie Is Abducted by a Sea Gull and Then Dropped but Her Fall Is Broken by a Barbed-Wire Fence.") 

The Way They Were: Bamboo and Colleen Hamilton in June of 2006    

The carnage that birds inflict upon cats is by no means confined to trash dumps and military installations but rather it extends to the heart of urban centers as well. In keeping with their customary modus operandi of driving coyotes and other large predators out of rural areas at the behest of capitalists, wildlife biologists are now championing the presence of predatory birds in cities where they are free to prey upon cats and kittens to their hearts' content.

For example, in June of 2006 a great horned owl abducted a fifteen-year-old cat named Bamboo from the back porch of her home with Colleen Hamilton on Oliver Street in Oak Bay, four kilometers east of Victoria in British Columbia. The owl attempted to carry the six and one-half-pound cat back to its nest but dropped her somewhere en route.

Bamboo hobbled home twenty-two hours later with a trio of broken legs, several puncture wounds, and a large piece of missing flesh and fur from her right paw which it was feared at the time that she might ultimately lose. She was alive, however, and that amazed her owner.

"She (has) always been really feisty and she has already survived a lot," Hamilton said. "I swear she is going to outlive me."

That doubtlessly was an exaggeration but since nothing further was ever heard of either her or Bamboo, it is not known how things ultimately turned out for them. (See Cat Defender post of July 31, 2006 entitled "A Fifteen-Year-Old Cat Named Bamboo Miraculously Survives Being Abducted and Mauled by a Hoot Owl in British Columbia.")  

Later in July of 2011, a retailed hawk abducted a white tom with light-green eyes while he was relaxing on a bench on the terrace of his fifth floor apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. On this occasion, however, the predatory bird bit off more than it could chew and shortly thereafter it dropped the fifteen-pound cat in a garden about fifteen feet from home.

A fall from that height likely would have killed him if his descent had not been broken by an outdoor umbrella. Consequently, he was able to have come away from his life and death struggle with the voracious raptor with only minor cuts, scrapes, and bruises.

Eddie on the Terrace Where He Was Attacked

His distraught owner did not recover quite so quickly from her shock in that it took her a considerable while in order to determine what had become of her beloved cat. She scoured Riverside Drive for him, fly-posted the neighborhood, and even visited several known hawk rookeries in the city. Finally, a tenant in a building a few doors down the street saw one of her Lost Cat posters and telephoned her to say, "I have your cat!"

The mere fact that the four-pound bird was able to have even lifted the cat is one indication of just how formidable these avian predators are and that does not even begin to take into consideration their lethal talons and sharp beaks. Individuals who therefore carelessly leave out either cooked or uncooked meats are unwittingly inviting them into their gardens and patios. (See Cat Defender post of August 1, 2011 entitled "Eddie Is Saved by an Outdoor Umbrella after He Is Abducted from a Balcony of His Manhattan Apartment and Then Dropped by a Redtailed Hawk.")

It is not only birds of prey that attack cats but magpies and crows as well. For example, during the early days of June in 2009 a flock of crows attacked a seven-month-old black kitten named Holly in Aylesburg, Buckinghamshire.

With Holly trapped seventy-feet up a tree in the summer heat and without food and water, the opportunistic birds made the best of the opportunity presented to them by attacking her with their beaks, flapping their wings at her, and shaking the branches in an effort to send her tumbling to her death on the ground. The crows relentlessly taunted and attacked her for the better part of two days before she eventually was brought down to safety by the local fire department. (See the Daily Mail, June 3, 2009, "Get Miaow Out of Here! Terrified Kitten Stuck Seventy Feet Up a Tree Saved from Angry Crows.")

Later on May 17, 2020 another cat suffered the same identical fate when  it was attacked by crows after it too became trapped atop a forty-nine-foot tree in Preston, Lancashire. The crows were so determined and aggressive that it took the Preston division of the Lancashire Fire Department more than an hour in order to successfully rescue the cat. (See the Lancashire Evening Post, May 18, 2020, "Cat Stuck in Nearly Fifty-Foot Tree Attacked by Crows as It Is Rescued by Preston Firefighters.")

"Nature, as Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Anatole France, James Branch Cabell, and some others have discovered, seldom rejects an opportunity to be ironic. It therefore should surprise no one to learn that a bird is one of the most dangerous enemies of the cat," Van Vechten continued. "The eagle swoops from the skies, seizes the cat along his spine with its terrible claws, mangles his head with its beak the while it flips its gaunt and terrifying wings and bears the little beast aloft."

He also included the following revealing anecdote. "A keeper in the eagle house at a London zoological garden informed Dr. Louis Robinson that when the eagles were off their food he offered them cats. 'If they won't eat cats they are about to die,' he said."

Holly Being Attacked by a Flock of Crows in Aylesburg

That is further evidence that ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and zookeepers always have killed and  exploited cats as not only a free and inexhaustible source of protein for birds and wildlife but also as nursemaids for orphaned and injured animals as well as sperm and egg donors for use in their diabolical cloning experiments. (See Cat Defender posts of June 30, 2008,  December 4, 2010, July 24, 2008, April 12, 2013, and September 6, 2005 entitled, respectively, "The Berlin Zoo Reunites Old Friends Muschi and Mäuschen after a Brief Enforced Separation," "Muschi Is Left on Her Own in a Perilous Environment after the Berliner Zoo Kills Off Her Best Friend and Protector, Mäuschen," "A Red Panda That Was Rejected by Her Mother but Later Adopted by a Cat Dies Unexpectedly at an Amsterdam Zoo," "Arnie of the Linton Zoo Is Remembered as a Wonderfully Loving and Charismatic Cat Who Gave Back Far More Than He Received During His All-Too-Brief Sojourn Upon This Earth," and "Clones of Endangered African Wildcats Give Birth to Eight Naturally-Bred Healthy Kittens in New Orleans," plus Global News of Toronto, January 28, 2024, "Kunming Zoo Removes Cats from Monkey Pen after Controversial Videos.")  

No statistics are compiled as to the number of cats and kittens that are killed each year by birds but it is strongly suspected that they kill far more felines than the latter kill of them. That is unquestionably the case when the number of cats that are killed by criminal ornithologists, such as James Munn Stevenson of Galveston, Ernst Bernhard K. of München, Nico Dauphiné Arcilla of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, Ted Williams of the National Audubon Society, and the despotic governments of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States are factored into the equation. (See Cat Defender posts of August 7, 2008, August 17, 2011, January 6, 2012, May 18, 2013, November 18, 2016, and December 16, 2022 entitled, respectively, "Crime Pays! Having Made Fools Out of Galveston Prosecutors, Serial Cat Killer James Munn Stevenson Is Now a Hero and Laughing All the Way to the Bank," "Ernst K. Walks Away Smelling Like a Rose as Both the Prosecutor and Judge Turn His Trial for Killing Rocco into a Lovefest for a Sadistic Cat Killer," "Nico Dauphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning," "Ted Williams and the National Audubon Society Issue a Call for Cats to Be Poisoned with Tylenol® and Then Try to Lie Out of It," "A Clever Devil at the University of Adelaide Boasts That He Has Discovered the Achilles' Heel of Cats with His Invention of Robotic Grooming Traps as the Thoroughly Evil Australians' All-Out War Against the Species Enters Its Final Stages," and "The Bloodthirsty National Park Service Is All Set to Trap, Remove, and Kill the Famous Cobblestone Cats of Old San Juan as the Tyrannical Feds Ratchet Up Their Worldwide Campaign of Felicide.") 

Yet that petit fait is never mentioned by the cat-killers' defenders at the scurrilous New York Times, The Washington Post, the Guardian of London, Salon magazine of San Francisco, the New Yorker, and countless other media claptraps. Of course, the genesis of all the ailurophobia that is sweeping the globe rests with those pointy-headed, supercilious charlatans who strut, preen, and pollute the halls of academia with their lies, hatreds, and prejudices. (See Cat Defender post of July 18, 2011 entitled "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Routinely Are Vilified, Abused, and Systematically Exterminated.")

"Language was our (man's) secret weapon, and as soon we got language we became a really dangerous species," Mark Pagel, a biologist at the University of Reading, told The New York Times on April 15, 2011 in reference to man's extermination of the neanderthals and large mammals. (See "Ancient Clicks Hint Language Is Africa Born.")

The fairly recent development of various forms of mass communication sealed the deal and insured that only the lies, interests, and prejudices of powerful individuals and groups would prevail. This phenomenon can be seen almost everywhere but it is most prominently on display in that which is passed off as honest journalism by the newspapers, television channels, and radio stations that hold sway in the capitalistic dystopia and thoroughly evil imperialistic empire known as the United States.

Ornithologists and wildlife biologists are attempting to lay a claim to ownership of the moral high road but such an assertion is only credible so long as one is stupid enough to believe that lies, duplicity, and the commission of despicable crimes against innocent animals is the fountainhead of all morality. Furthermore, for anyone to believe for one minute that liars and criminals are entitled to decide which animals are to be allowed to live and which ones are to be exterminated is nothing short of insane.

Perhaps most revealing of all, these hate-filled phonies do not even do a halfway decent job of protecting the birds that they claim to love so dearly. For example, they only care about those rare species that they have a financial interest in; city and ubiquitous birds are cavalierly dismissed as "trash." (See the Revelator, June 7, 2023, "What City Birds Around the World Have in Common.")

Casper Was Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver Fourteen Years Ago

Ornithologists also have killed countless birds and other wildlife not only by rolling in the hay with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service but also by drilling for oil in the Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, and at other locations owned by the phony-baloney National Audubon Society. (See Cat Defender post of March 10, 2009 entitled "The Audubons Dirty Dealings with the Mercenary United States Fish and Wildlife Service Redound to the Detriment of Acorn Woodpeckers" and the Property and Environmental Research Center of Bozeman, September 7, 1995, "PC Oil Drilling in a Wildlife Refuge.")

Once the entire story is known and put in its proper context, the worldwide war that is currently being waged against cats by ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and certain tyrannical governments is revealed to be nothing more than a malicious, unjust, nonsensical, and barbaric crime. That is precisely, however, what the capitalistic media and the degree mills do not want the public to know.

Every bit as ludicrous as their pretensions of moral and intellectual superiority is their notion that birds are somehow the totally innocent angels of the animal kingdom and therefore cannot do any wrong. On the contrary, in addition to their predation of cats and kittens some of them live off of fish, other marine life, such as horseshoe crabs, and beneficial insects. (See Cat Defender post of May 6, 2008 entitled "The National Audubon Society Wins the Right for Invasive Species of Shorebirds to Prey Upon Horseshoe Crabs.")

Furthermore, some of them spread deadly diseases, such as the avian influenza, and scarecrows most definitely never have been erected by farmers in order to protect their crops from cats.

The second threat to Pudding's life comes, as it did on July 3rd, from motorists. Exeter is simply too large and congested a city for her to be running loose on her own day and night.

The city is located only seventy-three kilometers northeast of Plymouth where two famous cats have been mowed down and killed by hit-and-run motorists in recent years. The first one was a dashing twelve-year-old longhaired tuxedo named Casper from the Barne Barton section of St. Budeaux whose owner, Susan Finden, foolishly allowed him not only out into traffic but also to ride the buses all by his lonesome.

The Forever Beautiful PCAT

 He died tragically underneath the wheels of a hit-and-run taxi driver on January 14, 2010. (See Cat Defender posts of August 27, 2009 and January 30, 2010 entitled, respectively, "Casper Treats Himself to an Unescorted Tour Around Plymouth Each Morning Courtesy of the Number Three Bus" and "Casper Is Run Down and Killed by a Hit-and-Run Taxi Driver While Crossing the Street in Order to Get to the Bus Stop.")

A little later in October of 2012, the students, professors, and administrators at Plymouth College of Art (now known as the Arts University of Plymouth) callously allowed a truly beautiful longhaired brown and white female named PCAT to be run down and killed by another hit-and-run motorist one block south of campus on Ebrington Street. Although she had lived on campus for more than a decade, the only known amenities that the stingy eggheads ever extended to her was to have provided her with a "little kennel" in which to sleep and, from time to time, scraps of food. (See Cat Defender post of November 21, 2012 entitled "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT.")

It is the very epitome of irresponsibility for anyone, including both the County of Devon and the city of Exeter, to allow any cat out into traffic. (See Cat Defender post of August 14, 2019 entitled "No Respect for Life: Early Graves and Crippling Injuries Are All That Cats Who Dare to Set Foot in the Street Can Expect from the Bloodthirsty Motoring Public.")

Like all of England, Exeter is infested with yobs who make a habit of maiming and killing cats with air guns. That is precisely what happened to a fourteen-month-old black female named Farah on September 27, 2014 when she was shot in the stomach by an assailant armed with one of those heinous weapons.

Every bit as unnerving, her killing took place in her own garden where she had every expectation of feeling  safe and secure. If something like that could happen to her, Pudding is a sitting duck for such an assault. (See Cat Defender post of April 2, 2015 entitled "A Cornishman Shells Out £10,000 on Private Peepers in Order to Track Down Farah's Killer but Once Again Gets Stiffed by Both the Police and the RSPCA.") 

Unleashed dogs and in particular rampaging and out-of-control foxhounds pose a fourth threat to Pudding's continued existence. (See Cat Defender post of July 1, 2021 entitled "Fourteen-Year-Old Mini Is Ripped to Shreds by a Pack of Vicious Hounds but Those Responsible Never Will Be Punished Because the Limeys Value the 'Unspeakable in Full Support of the Uneatable' Far More Than They Do Her Right to Live.")

Pudding Needs a Real Home with a Responsible Guardian...

Fifthly, the elements are aligned against her. Although residents of southern England are accustomed to a temperate climate, the region was hammered by an unusually snowy and cold spate of weather during late December and into early January that saw temperatures plunge to well below the freezing mark. (See the BBC, January 8, 2024, "United Kingdom Weather: Snow Hits South-East England as Cold Spell Takes Hold.")

In that regard, there is considerable doubt if Pudding even has access to heat during the winter months. "Pudding is regularly vet checked, microchipped, well-cared for and has a warm and safe indoor shelter at the centre," Phil Punnett of Cats Protection testified to the BBC in the July 7th article cited supra.

In its press release of July 4th, however, Exeter City Council fudges on that vitally important issue. "She sleeps in the Devon County Council site (where the trash dump and recycling center are located) at night in a shelter issued by the Cats Protection society to keep warm," it stated. "She also has a shelter outside Exeter City Council's Oakwood House office next door..."

If she is indoors at night in a "warm and safe indoor shelter" as Punnett claims, why does she still need a winterized shelter issued by Cats Protection? Maybe the confusion is attributable to the English's clumsy way of masticating their own mother tongue but even so considerable doubt lingers as to whether she has access to heat and a place in order to escape the elements.

Trumping all those concerns is the question of her personal safety and in that regard she should not be allowed outside on her own under any circumstances at night and when the recycling center is closed and that includes, presumably, weekends and holidays as well as overnight. Even when the recycling center is open for business someone should be watching out for her and that most definitely was not being done on July 3rd when she narrowly missed being killed, not once, but twice.

If anyone connected to either Exeter City or Devon County really cared about her they would either lock her indoors at night and whenever the recycling center is closed or take her home on those occasions. Best of all someone, such as Zena, should adopt her.

Unfortunately, in this wretched old world it is usually immorality, naked exploitation, and a slew of outrageous lies that always hold sway. Cats like Puddings "prefer an active and outdoor life where they can be independent yet still enjoy the care and attention which comes from living around people," Punnett ladled on the sottise to the BBC.

...but She Has Been Left on the Outside Looking In

Zena's testimony tells an entirely different story. In particular, it conclusively demonstrates that Pudding is a high socialized cat that craves human attention and love and is anything but a "stray cat" as Exeter City Council derogatorily refers to her in its press release.

As Pagel so astutely pointed out, the use and abuse of language always has been man's most lethal weapon and slandering and libeling cats as "strays," "ferals," and "pests" serves only to justify their neglect, abuse, and ultimate destruction. It additionally is more than probable that Cats Protection has abandoned Pudding to the city dump in order to rot along with the remainder of the trash because it is too cheap and lazy in order to find  her a real home.

Whereas the keeping of mascots and working cats is far preferable to exterminating them en masse, those governmental entities, institutions, and businesses that do so need to do a far better job of safeguarding their lives than the city of Naples did with City Kitty and the Annapolis Maritime Museum did with Miss Pearl. (See Cat Defender posts of March 25, 2010 and April 30, 2022 entitled, respectively, "The Mayor of Naples Fears the Worst Now That City Kitty Has Not Been Seen in Several Weeks" and "Relegated to the Dustbin of History and All but Forgotten by the Grossly Negligent Annapolis Maritime Museum, Miss Pearl's Beautiful Soul Continues to Cry Out from the Grave for Justice.")

There is a world of difference between exploiting a cat for one's own selfish desires on the one hand and valuing it as a sentient being whose life has meaning and is well worth safeguarding but neither the garbagemen nor the recycling staff in Devon County nor Exeter City Council seem to appreciate that distinction. Caring, if it still counts for anything in this world, means at the very least doing the right thing by protecting the lives of cats such as Pudding.

In the wake of the twin assaults upon her fragile life on July 3rd, all of her caretakers have been given a  second chance in order to do right by her but so far they have callously demurred. With that being the case, her future looks anything but promising.

One day she likely will wind up either as Miss Pearl did in Annapolis or she will simply disappear as City Kitty did in Naples and then it will be far too later for anyone in Exeter to have saved her. Then Zena will really have something to feel heartbroken about...at least for a whole minute or two.

Photos: the London Metro (Pudding sleeping on her side), Exeter City Council (Pudding showing her stomach and looking in at the door),  Danielle Bell of the Nanaimo Daily News (Hawk), the Glasgow Evening News (Blackie with John Bellshaw), Erin Kelly-Gedisckt of the Oak Bay News (Bamboo and Colleen Hamilton), Joanna Molloy of the New York Daily News (Eddie), the Daily Mail (Holly being attacked by crows), The Sun of London (Casper), Facebook (PCAT), and Ellie Wilson of the Exton Road Recycling Centre (Pudding in the grass).


Monday, January 01, 2024

Seventeen Cats Are Found Dead in a Dumpster in Nashville in the Latest Sorry Chapter of Southerners' Longstanding Loathing for the Species

A Gray and White Cat That Was Found Alive

"Someone knows something. This is animal cruelty."
-- Angie Hess
Cat killers and dumpers are to be found just about everywhere these days but in the Hermitage section of Nashville someone dumped a grand total of nineteen of them in a Dumpster. As it so often is the case with the remains of both felines and humans, the grisly discovery was made by a ragpicker.

"I've found bags full of jewelry, gold, silver, and all that but no dead cats," Angie Hess told WTVF-TV of Nashville on November 3rd. (See "Nearly Two Dozen Deceased Cats Discovered Stuffed in Tote Container Found (sic) in Hermitage Dumpster, Two Found Alive.")

She made the horrifying discovery on the evening of November 2nd while Dumpster-diving near the T Mobil and Electronic Express at an unidentified shopping center near Old Hickory Boulevard and Old Lebanon Dirt Road. The former is most likely named in honor of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States and whose face adorns twenty-dollar bills. The eleven-hundred-acre plantation with its Greek Revival Mansion that he lived at between 1804 and 1845, except for when he was in Washington between 1829 and 1837, is located nearby and is known as The Hermitage.

After notifying Metro Animal Care and Control, Hess returned to the scene of the crime with an unidentified employee of a Home Depot outlet where they soon discovered two minor miracles amidst the carnage. "He (the employee of Home Depot) physically checked every animal to see if' they were dead or alive," she added to WTVF-TV. "When he lifted a couple of dead cats a kitten came crawling out."

A little bit later a cat that has been described as an adult also was found alive. From the photographs that were posted online by Animal Control it is all but impossible to tell which one is the adult and which one is the kitten; actually, they look to be about the same age. Also, since their sexes have not been specified it is impossible to even speculate if the pair could be a mother and one of her kittens.

Sadly, the duo were the only survivors. The remaining seventeen cats were long dead.

Hess took the survivors home with her and bathed them. "The water was bloody because they were covered in it," she continued to WTVF-TV. "I think they were someone's pet (sic) because they were calm and loving."
                                                
The mere fact that the cats were covered in blood is a pretty good indication that the deceased ones were either shot or bludgeoned to death. Oddly enough, press reports have not made any mention of the survivors as having been injured.

Perhaps by the time that the assailant had gotten around to them he had either run out of ammunition or his arm had become fatigued from wielding a bludgeon. Furthermore, if all of them were indeed pets that only serves to make this slaughter all the more reprehensible, but that is an example of the types of diabolical monsters who sometimes adopt cats.

Hess took the cats to an unidentified veterinarian the following morning and they afterwards were handed over to Animal Control. All that is known about them is that they were expected to have lived but it is not known what has become of them.

At this juncture it only seems fair to ask what, if anything, were the employees of Animal Control doing while Hess and the employee of Home Depot were busily performing their jobs for them? Also, did the city agency stick Hess with the cats' veterinary tab?

After all, it is almost unheard of for any veterinarian to treat a cat pro bono and that is doubly true for  the callous and stingy surgeons who practice veterinary medicine in the state of Tennessee. For instance, on July 8, 2010 a still at large cretin threw a beautiful five-week-old orange and white kitten out the window of an automobile on busy Interstate-24 in Chattanooga, two-hundred-fourteen kilometers southeast of Nashville. 

It was rescued in traffic by David Livesay who spent the following four hours unsuccessfully attempting to procure emergency veterinary care for it. During that time he was turned down by at least two practitioners who categorically refused to treat it.

"It's a life!" he pleaded in vain. "Anything alive is worth saving."

The veterinarians, however, refused to even look at the kitten. Au contraire, the only faces that any of them are ever happy to see are the dead ones that adorn those little green pieces of paper that are printed by the Treasury Department. (See Cat Defender post of July 16, 2010 entitled "Tossed Out the Window of a Car Like an Empty Beer Can, an Injured Chattanooga Kitten Is Left to Die after at Least Two Veterinarians Refused to Treat It.")

A Tuxedo Also Survived

As far as it could be confirmed, Animal Control's only contribution to this investigation has been to collect the corpses of the seventeen deceased cats. What it did with them has not been disclosed but more than likely it imitated the criminal behavior of their killer by casually tossing them in another Dumpster when they at the very least deserved proper burials.

If it had been even halfway serious about apprehending their killer it would have ordered necropsies on some of their corpses. It additionally would have combed their fur and looked underneath their claws for evidence.

Press reports claim that the cats were found in some kind of a tote and if that is accurate it surely must have been an awfully large bag in order to have held nineteen cats and their killer would have required a significant amount of upper body strength in order to have hoisted it into the Dumpster. It would have been a real long shot but it might have been possible for Animal Control to have traced the bag.

There initially was some palaver about the agency obtaining and reviewing surveillance footage from the shopping center as well it having forwarded unspecified forensic evidence to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department but nothing further has been heard concerning either matter. Given that two months have passed since the cats were brutally slain, it does not appear that Animal Control has lifted so much as a lousy finger in order to bring their killer to justice. 

Yet, appearances must be maintained. "Our team continues to investigate," Matthew Peters of Animal Control blowed to WSMV-TV of Nashville on November 3rd. (See "Seventeen Cats Found Dead in Hermitage Dumpster.") "We are asking for the community's assistance. Anyone with information is asked to contact our team at (615) 862-7928 and leave a message for our team."

Whereas begging the public to do its job for it is bad enough in its own right, Animal Control's unwillingness to even answer its own telephone makes an even bigger mockery of its indifference and absurd public posturing. Even more reprehensibly, it is harboring an even older, darker, and far more abominable secret in its malignant bosom.

For example, up until 2015 its kill rate for all animals that it was able to have gotten its blood-drenched hands on was a whopping eighty per cent and when it is taken into consideration that far more cats are impounded than dogs that surely means that it killed just about every cat that it either picked up on the street or that was surrendered to it by morally bankrupt Nashvillians. To this very day its kill rate for all animals that it impounds is still around fifty per cent.

Plus, those statistics do not even begin to include all the cats that Animal Control kills in the field and then surreptitiously disposes of their corpses. It accordingly is perfectly clear that what Music City in general and Animal Control in particular are operating is a feline extermination factory. (See WPLN, 90.3 FM of Nashville, May 27, 2015, "Nashville Animal Control Drops Its Kill Rate by Shipping Pets Out of the South.")
 
The state of affairs for cats in Nashville is so bleak that Animal Control does not even endeavor to find homes for any of those that it impounds. That dire assessment of the situation can be easily verified by visiting its Facebook page where not only have the killings of November 2nd never been mentioned but cats in general are only referred to every once in a blue moon.

What visitors are treated to instead are endless appeals for the public to adopt dogs. Cats on the other hand are killed in cold blood and without so much as a twinge of either conscience or remorse. 

Such morally retarded thinking and behavior holds sway throughout all of Tennessee and across just about all of the south with the possible exception of Texas. For instance, in Memphis Animal Control deliberately allows large, vicious dogs to freely roam the streets and in doing so to chase down and savagely kill both homeless and domesticated cats. (See Cat Defender post of April 30, 2023 entitled "The City of Memphis Is Refusing to Remove a Pair of Homeless Dogs from the Street No Matter How Many Cats That They Kill.") 
  
The Nashville Humane Association is every bit as hostile to cats as is Animal Control and on its Facebook page only one reference to cats could be found. Every other entry concerned dogs and its efforts to place them in new homes.

As best it could be determined from an online search, only Nashville Cat Rescue and Music City Animal Rescue even so much as bother with rescuing and placing cats in new homes. Both group are, however, forced to rely solely upon private donations and primarily volunteers and fosterers and their efforts are therefore woefully inadequate in order to combat the unspeakable atrocities that Animal Control is committing every day of the week against cats.

With that being the case, they possess neither the resources nor the expertise in order to investigate cases of cruelty to cats. Not surprisingly, both groups have not had anything to say on their Facebook pages about the murders of the seventeen cats.

True to form, the Nashville Police Department has not had anything to say about the events of November 2nd and nothing is expected from it. Cops never investigate crimes committed against members of the species no matter how horrific and widespread.

Long Gone but Not Forgotten, the Chattanooga Kitten

Even in the unlikely event that the cats' killer could be identified and arrested, it is a foregone conclusion that district attorney Glenn R. Funk would not prosecute. He has been on the job for a decade and it would be shocking if he has tried so much as a solitary case of feline cruelty.

The media in Nashville are another group of rotters in that they barely even reported on Hess's horrific discovery in that Dumpster and since then they have been every bit as silent as church mice. Quite obviously, they could care less how many cats and kittens that are liquidated in Nashville. Nashvillians likewise surely must love to shed innocent feline blood because they inexcusably refuse to raise their voices in opposition to the atrocities that are being committed by Animal Control.

C'est-à-dire, there have not been any cries of moral outrage and demands that the ends of justice be served by arresting and punishing the cats' killer. The silence of the denizens of Music City has been deafening.

It thus seems perfectly fair to conclude that besides dogs the only things that Nashvillians care about are country music, football, getting drunk every Saturday night, and Donald Trump. (See Cat Defender post of April 28, 2017 entitled "Trump Not Only Exposes Himself for What He Is but Also Disgraces the Office of President by Fetting Cat Killers Theodore Anthony Nugent and Kid Rock at the White House.")

Cats and kittens who therefore suffer the misfortune of winding up homeless in a hellhole like Nashville have only two very slim chances of staying alive. First of all, Animal Control operates a TNR program in conjunction with the Pet Community Center but it is not known either how large or effective it is in saving lives.

Therefore, the only real hope for such cats is that they will be rescued and spirited out of Nashville by shelters located in the northeast and midwest. The only data that are available on this subject comes from WPLN 90.3 FM which in the article cited supra claims that twelve-hundred cats and dogs were transferred out of state in 2014.

Although such efforts are very much appreciated, they are a mere drop in the proverbial bucket when compared to the tens of thousands of cats that Animal Control is systematically annihilating each year. This is a huge problem not only in Nashville but throughout the backward and ailurophobic south.

For example, on December 18th a plane landed in Waukesha, thirty-one kilometers west of Milwaukee, that was carrying sixty cats and dogs that had been rescued off of death row in New Orleans. (See WDJT-TV of Milwaukee, December 18, 2023, "Fifty-Plus Dogs and Cats Flown from the South into Waukesha; Nearly Ready for Adoption into 'Fur-ever' Home (sic).")

Conscientious shelters in the north have convincingly demonstrated that sterilization and adoption is the humane and just way in order to deal with homeless cats and dogs. Meanwhile, shelters and Animal Control agencies in the south continue to showcase their total lack of morality and intelligence by stubbornly clinging to trap and kill.

It is a shame that northerners are forced to rescue the cats and dogs that southerners only want to ruthlessly slaughter. That is especially the case considering that the latter are by no means impoverished as it has been attested to by Hess's highly profitable treasure hunts through the Dumpsters of Nashville..

They accordingly are every bit as financially capable of taking care of their homeless cats and kittens as are northerners. They simply do not have any use for them and that is their oldest, darkest, and dirtiest secret.
                                                                                
Moreover, that is something that visitors to the Grand Olde Opry in Nashville and other tourist magnets throughout the south should bear in mind. An acknowledgement of that harsh reality is even more important for individuals who are contemplating relocating south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Ailurophobia is so rampant in Nashville that the only person to have contributed anything positive toward the apprehension of the cats' killer was the ragpicker and she demonstrated her commitment to serving the ends of justice by photographing each of the victims. According to her, they were of all ages, sizes, and colors.

Hess also is apparently the only resident of Nashville who has any sense of responsibility. "Someone knows something. This is animal cruelty," she correctly deduced to WSMV-TV in Nashville. "These animals can't protect themselves. We are their voice. We have to protect them. No one else will."

A good case also could be made that she is the only Nashvillian with any morals. "How can you kill a defenseless animal that has no voice and can't fight you back?" she rhetorically asked WTVF-TV. "I think they (the culprit or culprits) should be charged with nineteen counts of something."

The Two Survivors: Where Are They Now?

That is not about to happen in a million years in a city as backward and rednecky as Nashville. In fact, the city had already forgotten all about the murdered cats long before Animal Control incinerated their remains.

Despite the difficulties involved in such an endeavor, pressure nevertheless should be brought to bear upon Animal Control in order to compel it into disclosing what it has done with the two cats that survived. The mounting fear, however, is that unless they have been saved by a rescue group in the north Animal Control has killed them.

Just as fish are said to rot from the head, so too do cities. In Nashville's case, its leadership is comprised of  notorious cat killers and all the Jack Daniel's and Hank Williamses in this world cannot drown out that horrible truth.

It would be reprehensible enough if the mass killing and dumping of cats were confined to backwaters like Nashville but, regrettably, that is hardly the case. For example, a little over two weeks later on November 17th thirteen dead cats were found in a blue oil barrel on Muller Road just east of Bakersfield in Kern County, one-hundred-eighty kilometers north of Los Angeles in California's Central Valley.

"I saw a barrel, and it seemed somewhat out of place to me, and I did see something furry sticking out so I went to go see," Yesenia Giles, who cares for homeless cats in the area, later told KERO-TV of Bakersfield on November 28th. (See "Barrel of Thirteen Dead Cats Found in East Bakersfield.") "I was in shock. There's a lot of shocking things out here..."

She immediately contacted Kern County Animal Control but that turned out to have been a total waste of her time because all that she received from it in return was the usual fare of excuses and utter baloney for doing nothing. "I've never seen thirteen cats that were in a barrel dumped on the side of the road like that," the agency's head honcho Nick Cullen hyperventilated to KERO-TV. "I've never seen it."

Since the cats had been dumped in an isolated area that serves as an unofficial landfill, he had a ready-made excuse for curtly dismissing the cats' deaths as not being of any consequence. "It's always tough to try to be able (to) track down who might have done that, especially when they're in a remote area," he continued to KERO-TV.

It is truly stunning that a society that is capable of putting men on the moon, militarily conquering nearly the entire world and outer space, and through outright thievery and the printing of money is able to have racked up a national debt in excess of thirty-four trillion dollars is at the same time thoroughly incapable of tracking down and incarcerating a solitary cat killer. The Chinese maintain that a long journey is made short by the taking of the first step and that is the problem with most Americans in that they are all blow and no go.

In this particular instance, Animal Control did not even bother to stir its worthless, rotten bones until two days later on November 19th when it finally arrived on the scene and collected the corpses of the dead cats. Presumably, it had been waiting for the vultures to have done its job for it.

For what it is worth, Cullen later told KERO-TV that an examination of the cats' remains failed to detect any signs of trauma but that does not foreclose the possibility that they could have been poisoned by either their owners or vivisectors at a local research laboratory. Necropsies would have been able to have pinpointed how that they had been killed but there is not anything in the public record to even suggest that they were performed.
  
"Cats on the side of the road, it's absolutely disgusting," Cullen continued his hyperventilating to KBAK-TV of Bakersfield on November 30th. (See "Uncovering Kern County's Animal Cruelty Crisis: A Silent Epidemic.") "It' disgusting and anybody who would do it whether they killed them or whether they were already deceased when they dumped them on the side of the road is reportable."

The entire world is cognizant of that. What it wants and expects from those in charge of enforcing the anti-cruelty statutes is action, not histrionics.

Alas, the latter was all that the public was destined to have received from Cullen and his agency. Nothing further has been heard from him and, quite obviously, no arrest has been made in this case and none is expected. In fact, no mention of the killings could even be found on Animal Control's Facebook page.

Like the Facebook page of Animal Control in Nashville, the one maintained by Kern County Animal Services barely mentions cats at all; practically every posting, photograph, and video is devoted to securing homes for dogs.

Zack Scrivner, who serves as supervisor for District Two where the cats were found, demonstrated his utter contempt for the sanctity of feline lives by refusing to return multiple telephone calls from Dominique LaVigne of KERO-TV. Since he quite obviously does not have the slightest bit of interest in either protecting the lives of the cats that reside in his district or of putting an end to illegal trash dumping, the voters should send him packing in the upcoming election.

 The Oil Barrel with Thirteen Dead Cats Spilling Out of It 

That is even more of an imperative considering that considerably more animals than cats are being abused and killed in Kern County. "We are in trouble here and I have found animals, lamb, sheep, wrapped up with barbwire (sic) on the side of the road," Carmen Carpio, an unaffiliated animal rescuer, told KBAK-TV. "It's a huge epidemic here in Kern County and it's actually growing, and getting worse."

As it is the case everywhere else in this world, animal rights count for almost nothing when it comes to making and saving money in Kern County. Whereas oil and gas drilling along with farming traditionally have been the big money-makers, the current craze is building warehouses and the huge increases in both vehicular traffic and auto emissions that go along with that endeavor cannot possibly be beneficial for the county's four-legged inhabitants. (See the Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2023, "As Kern County Officials Embrace a Warehouse Boom, Some in the Community Brace for Even Worse Air")

In such a money-mad environment few individuals, both inside and outside of government, have any interest in enforcing the anti-cruelty statutes. For her part, however, Giles is not quite ready to throw in the towel.

"I would like more people to say something," she told KERO-TV. "If they see something, to report it right away."

Even if that were to happen it is doubtful that Animal Control would even act. It certainly is never going to be taken seriously if it continues to wait for two days after it has been notified before it even so much as stirs its lazy bones.

Although Animal Control appears to be doing practically nothing in order to enforce compliance with the anti-cruelty statutes, it claims to have made substantial progress in lowering its kill rate. For example, over the course of the past decade it claims to have gone from killing two-thousand animals a month to only killing one-hundred-forty-five.

In 2019, it killed one-thousand-three-hundred-nine cats and one-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-four dogs for a kill rate of sixteen per cent. In 2020, it reportedly improved to the point that it actually achieved no-kill status by only killing three-hundred-ninety-eight cats and five-hundred-sixty-four dogs for a kill rate of nine per cent.

While those statistics were no doubt helped out by the COVID-19 lockdown, Animal Control's kill rate rose again in 2021 when it dispatched to the devil four-hundred-thirty-three cats and seven-hundred-thirty-nine dogs for a kill rate of fourteen and one-half per cent. (See the Bakersfield Californian, January 7, 2022, "Kern County Animal Services No Longer a No-Kill Shelter after Increase in Euthanasia" and www.kernanimalservices.org, "Kern County Animal Services: Reports and Statistics.")

Although Kern County is making progress in saving lives, all statistics released to the public by shelters and Animal Control agencies are highly suspect. For instance, Bakersfield has an Animal Control agency that is staffed by the Bakersfield Police but it has not proven possible to locate any data concerning its kill rate.

Even more troubling, cops and Animal Control officers are known to shoot cats and other animals in the field and to dispose of their bodies. Consequently, their deaths are never included in the statistics that either they or shelters release to the public.

Additionally, shelters quite often fob off cats onto other shelters to be killed. (See Cat Defender post of July 29, 2010 entitled "The Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While as Masquerading as a No Kill Shelter.")

Another telling difference between Bakersfield and Nashville is in the attitude of the local media. Whereas the latter has taken it upon itself to ignore and to cover up the despicable crimes that the city is committing against cats, the former has taken the exact opposite approach.

To put the matter succinctly, Bakersfield is on the road toward treating cats with compassion and respecting their right to live whereas Nashville still continues to look down upon them as nonentities to be liquidated en masse. That is not meant to imply, however, that Bakersfield and Kern County have in any way earned a right to rest upon their laurels.

On the contrary, what Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam said in song about the cruel and unforgiving streets of Bakersfield all those years ago remains all-too-true as far as cats and kittens are concerned:

"Hey, you don't know me, but you don't like me
Say you care less how I feel
But how many of you have sit and judged me
Ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?"
Photos: Matthew Peters of Metro Animal Care and Control in Nashville (the two cats that survived), WTVC-TV of Chattanooga (kitten), and Yesenia Giles (oil barrel).