Category: animals

These haunting animal photos aim to make you reconsider a visit to the zoo – The Washington Post

Jo-Anne McArthur, a Canadian photographer and animal rights activist, does not deny that her new book could be called “one-sided.” That is sort of the point.

The images in “Captive” were taken at zoos across five continents, but they don’t include depictions of handlers bottle-feeding baby hippos, giving pandas ultrasounds or even cleaning cages. They’re taken from the perspective of the public, and, McArthur said, aim to show the animals as “individuals,” as opposed to representatives of their species. The photos are unusual and at times arresting, featuring solitary animals juxtaposed against gawking crowds, suburbia and the barriers that keep them enclosed.

The book comes off as quite anti-zoo, but McArthur says she hopes it will count as a contribution to an escalating public conversation about animals in captivity — one that has been highlighted by uproar over Sea World orcas and the killing of Harambe the gorilla, but that is also churning quietly among zoo managers.

What follows is a selection of photos from McArthur’s book, paired with her captions, and a Q and A about the book. All images were taken in 2016, when McArthur was on assignment in Europe for the Born Free Foundation, a wildlife advocacy organization.

These haunting animal photos aim to make you reconsider a visit to the zoo – The Washington Post

Cats crossed continents to be close to us, says gene study

Cats like to think they don’t need us, but a new study into feline genetics has indicated that the global kitty population only boomed when they moved in with humans. The research, presented last week and reported by Nature, seems to show two distinct waves of growth in cat numbers: first around 10,000 years ago as humans first started cultivating crops, and second as we started taking to the seas.

CAT FAMILIES FROM EGYPT ENDED UP IN BULGARIA

The researchers behind the study sequenced DNA from more than 200 cats of various generations discovered in tombs, burial sites, and other archaeological sites, from as far back as 15,000 years ago, to animals born in the 1700s. Even among this limited sample, they found links in mitochondrial DNA, genetic information passed down through the maternal line only — suggesting that cat families had either moved or been taken near to human civilizations. This mitochondrial connection was spotted between wild cats found in the Middle East and creatures discovered close to the fertile east Mediterranean, a region well-known for its early agriculture. Researchers also found connections between cats that lived millennia later, linking mummified kitties discovered in Egyptian tombs with cats found as far away as Bulgaria, Turkey, and sub-Sarahan Africa.

TheVerge

Listen to her purr… how to train your cat

Iam a few days into training my cat and things aren’t going too well. She has been sick all over the carpet and her blanket. My attempts at making her perform simple tasks are met with bafflement and tail flicking. The custom-made toys I have crafted for her are summarily ignored. At one point, she starts chewing on the copy of the training book I’m using, looking me in the eye as if to say: “Just you try.”

The book in question is The Trainable Cat by biologist John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis, a feline behaviour specialist at the charity International Cat Care. The duo’s BBC Horizon programmes, The Secret Life of the Cat (2013) and Cat Watch (2014), aimed to demystify cat behaviour and their new book sets out detailed instructions on how to help cats deal with the sources of stress inherent to life as a pet: trips to the vet, visits from strangers and new and potentially upsetting situations such as moving house or the arrival of a baby.

After dogs, cats are the UK’s second most popular pet choice, with 17% of households owning one or more of the 7.6m cats in the country. Yet they are seen as mysterious and unpredictable; it’s not a coincidence that sphinxes are symbols of inscrutability. Cats, we are told, are independent creatures and, as a result, owners largely leave them to their own devices.

The Guardian

Are Cats Domesticated?

“The cat does not offer services,” William Burroughs wrote. “The cat offers itself.” But it does so with unapologetic ambivalence. Greet a cat enthusiastically and it might respond with nothing more than a few unhurried blinks. Later, as you’re trying to work, it will commandeer your lap, keyboard, and attention, purring all the while. A cat will mew at the food bowl in the morning and set off on a multiple-day trek in the afternoon. Dogs are dependent on us to the point of being obsequious, but cats seem to be constantly reëvaluating the merits of our relationship, as well as their role in domestic life. “Are cats domesticated?” is one of the most frequently Googled questions about the animals, based on the search engine’s autocomplete suggestions.

It’s a question that scientists have been asking, too. The latest answer, based on insights from recent archeological discoveries and genome-sequencing studies, is that cats are semi-domesticated…

The New Yorker

Scientists Figure Out How to Retrieve ‘Lost’ Memories

Mice certainly aren’t men, but they can teach us a lot about memories. And in the latest experiments, mice are helping to resolve a long-simmering debate about what happens to “lost” memories. Are they wiped out permanently, or are they still there, but just somehow out of reach?

Researchers in the lab of Susumu Tonegawa at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT conducted a series of studies using the latest light-based brain tracking techniques to show that memories in certain forms of amnesia aren’t erased, but remain intact and potentially retrievable. Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, are based on experiments in mice, but they could have real implications for humans, too.

TIME

Watch Robin Williams Converse With Koko the Gorilla and Be Charmed

In addition to many millions of humans, at least one other primate is likely mourning the loss of actor and comedian Robin Williams today. Koko, the gorilla who communicates in a modified version of American Sign Language and is said to understand even some spoken words, filmed an ad campaign with Williams in 2004 to raise awareness of threats against gorillas. The video below shows their first meeting, where Koko asks Williams to chase and tickle her, steals his sunglasses, and rummages through his wallet.

Slate