USDA Fed Cats and Dogs to Kittens, Alarming Watchdog Report Claims

By Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor | March 19, 2019 04:50pm ET

The title of the report says it all, "USDA Kitten Cannibalism." It seems hard to believe, but an investigation by a nonprofit watchdog group reveals that the U.S. government purchased hundreds of cats and dogs for stomach-churning research projects — projects that the watchdog group describes as "needless."

The research, carried out at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service's Animal Parasitic Disease Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, included feeding the remains of euthanized "meat market" animals to healthy lab cats and injecting the remains of parasite-infected cats into mice, according to NBC News, which acquired an early copy of the reportreleased today (March. 19) by The White Coat Waste Project, a group aimed at ending wasteful animal testing.

According to NBC News, the investigation found that more than 400 dogs from Colombia, Brazil and Vietnam, as well as 100 cats from China and Ethiopia, were euthanized for lab food.

Apparently, the lab also breeds kittens in order to carry out research on the parasite Toxoplasma gondii; cats are the only host animal for the parasite's eggs. These cats were fed brain or muscle tissue from intentionally infected cats. This month, lawmakers announced they would introduce legislation to prevent the lab from infecting cats with the parasite and then later euthanizing and incinerating those cats after researchers collected the parasites from the animals' feces, according to another NBC News report.

The parasite T. gondii causes toxoplasmosis, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports as a leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness in the United States; humans can become infected after consuming food or water contaminated with infected cat feces or from eating undercooked meat of animals harboring cysts of the parasite in their tissue, according to the CDC.

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This $1.5 Million Project Aims to Count All the Cats in Washington, D.C.

By Yasemin Saplakoglu, Staff Writer | July 20, 2018 02:16pm ET

Humans are coming together in Washington, D.C., to get a head count of cats — every furry one of them, including those living in the wild, in shelters and in households.

The project, called "D.C. Cat Count," will take three years and cost $1.5 million, according to NPR. Scientists, animal welfare organizations and citizens will do the tabby tallying, according to the project's website. 

Cats, especially feral ones, can have a large impact on nature. For example, a recent study showed that every year, feral cats kill around 466 million reptiles in Australia, some threatened, Live Science previously reported. Another study by the same team and published in 2017 in the journal Biological Conservation showed that these Australian cats also devoured around 272 million birds a year. [Here, Kitty, Kitty: 10 Facts for Cat Lovers] 

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Female cats are more likely to be right-handed, researchers discover

Date:  January 22, 2018

Source: Queen's University Belfast

Summary:

Researchers at Queen's University Belfast have found that female cats are much more likely to use their right paw than males.

Dr Louise McDowell, Dr Deborah Wells and Professor Peter Hepper from the School of Psychology at Queen's, recruited 44 cats for the study and found that while there was no overall population preference like the human preference for right handedness, there was a gender preference. The findings have been published in Animal Behaviour.

Until now, studies on limb preference of animals have focused solely on forced experimental challenges. However, in the Queen's study, the cats -- 24 male and 20 female and all neutered -- were studied in their own homes so that information could be gathered as they went about their everyday tasks.

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Toxoplasmosis: How a cat parasite exploits immune cells to reach the brain

Date:  December 8, 2017

Source:  Stockholm University

Scientists have previously shown that a parasite from cats can infect people's brain and affect our behavior. Now, researchers at Stockholm University have discovered how the parasite takes control of our cells.

"We have decoded how the parasite takes control of immune cells, converting them into moving "zombies" which spread the parasite in the body," said Antonio Barragan, professor at Stockholm University and one of the authors of the new study.

The infection toxoplasmosis is caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii and is widely spread. It's estimated that 30-50 per cent of the global human population are carriers. Cats are the parasites' main host, but the infection is also spread among other animals, including humans. A series of studies have previously shown that the parasite affects the brain of infected rats so that they lose fear of cats and even become attracted to cats' smell, making them an easy prey. This is how the parasite is spread onward, by ensuring that the rat is eaten by a cat. Toxoplasmosis is life-threatening to people with impaired immune systems and to unborn fetuses, but causes only mild symptoms in healthy individuals. However, there are studies showing that mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorder are more common in people who are carriers of Toxoplasma gondii. There are also studies indicating that the parasite may affect aggressive or risky behavior.

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Delayed weaning reduces behavioural problems in cats

Date:  September 15, 2017

Source:  University of Helsinki

Summary:

Early weaning increases aggression and stereotypic behavior in cats. Based on the study, the recommended weaning age of 12 weeks should be raised by at least two weeks. Delaying weaning is an easy and cost-efficient way of improving the quality of life of cats.

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Ancient DNA reveals how cats domesticated humans

June 20, 2017

by Chuck Bednar


While dogs are believed to be the first animal to be domesticated, cats – as one might expect from a feline – took their sweet time trying to decide whether or not they wanted to bond with humans, according to a new, comprehensive genetic analysis published this week.

The authors of the study, which appeared in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, looked at the DNA of around 200 feline species representing more than 9,000 years, including mummified Egyptian cats and modern-day African wildcats, National Geographic reported on Monday. Based on that analysis, the researchers concluded that felines lived alongside humans for several thousand years before actually becoming domesticated, and that the earliest ancestors of today’s housecats came to Europe from southwest Asia as early as 4400 BC, the publication added.

Lead author Claudio Ottoni, a paleogeneticist from the University of Leuven, and his colleagues analyzed DNA from the bones, teeth, skin and hair of 100 to 9,000-year-old felines discovered at archeological sites in Western Asia, Europe and Africa. They found that all modern-day cats can be traced back genetically to the African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), a subspecies of wildcat found in North Africa and the Near East, according to a press release.



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Study shows why you shouldn’t declaw your cats

May 25, 2017

by Chuck Bednar 

Having your cats declawed could increase their risk of long-term or persistent pain, and might even make them more aggressive and less likely to use the litter box, according to new research published online Tuesday in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery.

As part of the study, lead author Nicole Martell-Moran, a veterinary practitioner at the Feline Medical Center in Houston, Texas, and her colleagues looked at a total of 137 cats that had not undergone the procedure known as onychectomy, and another 137 which had (including 33 that had the claws removed on all four feet).

Each of the cats were examined for signs of discomfort and barbering (or excessive licking or chewing of fur), and their medical history was reviewed for negative behaviors. What the study authors found was that declawed cats were approximately seven times more likely to urinate or soil outside of the litter box, four times more likely to bite, and three times more likely to either become aggressive or overgroom themselves.

Furthermore, the declawed felines were nearly three times more likely to be diagnosed with back pain than cats that had not undergone onychectomies, the study authors said. This is likely due to shortening of the declawed limb, altered gait and/or chronic pain at the site of the procedure.

“The result of this research reinforces my opinion that declawed cats with unwanted behaviors may not be ‘bad cats,’ they may simply need pain management,” Martin-Moran explained in a statement. “We now have scientific evidence that declawing is more detrimental to our feline patients than we originally thought and I hope this study becomes one of many that will lead veterinarians to reconsider declawing cats.”

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Cats found to like humans more than thought

March 29, 2017 by Bob Yirka report

(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers with Oregon State University and Monmouth University has conducted experiments with cats, and has found that they appear to like humans more than expected. In their paper published in the journal Behavioral Processes, Kristyn Vitale Shreve, Lindsay Mehrkam and Monique Udell describe their experiments and their plans for conducting additional experiments to better understand cat motivations.

Cats have a reputation as being stand-offish and somewhat distant—some have suggested they only hang around their owners because of the easy meals. But they may actually like their owners more than their reputation suggests, the researchers with this new effort found. They point out that cats may simply be misunderstood, noting that recent research has found that cats have complex socio-cognitive and problem solving abilities. They suggest further that the commonly held belief that cats are less reactive to social stimuli might be due to a lack of knowledge regarding the things that cats actually find stimulating.

To assess the degree to which cats like (or are stimulated by) certain things, the researchers tested reactions from two groups of 19 cats each—those living with people and those living in a shelter. The cats were kept sequestered for two and a half hours and were then watched as they were presented with three items from one of four category types: food, scent, toy and human interaction. The researchers mixed up the stimuli for the different cats to get a better read on which they found the most stimulating. The degree of preference for any one stimuli was judged by which stimuli the cat went for first and how and for how long it interacted with it.

The researchers report that they found clear variability among the cats regardless of home type, but overall social interaction with humans was the stimulus most preferred—half of the cats chose interacting with a human above anything else offered, which included food—they spent on average 65 percent of their time interacting with a person. This, the researchers suggest, shows that cats really do like being around their human owners, despite how they might behave around them.

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Cats may be as intelligent as dogs, say scientists

By Helen Briggs BBC News

25 January 2017

The idea that dogs are more intelligent than cats has been called into question.

Japanese scientists say cats are as good as dogs at certain memory tests, suggesting they may be just as smart.

A study - involving 49 domestic cats - shows felines can recall memories of pleasant experiences, such as eating a favourite snack.

Dogs show this type of recollection - a unique memory of a specific event known as episodic memory.

Humans often consciously try to reconstruct past events that have taken place in their lives, such as what they ate for breakfast, their first day in a new job or a family wedding.

These memories are linked with an individual take on events, so they are unique to that person.

Have you got a clever cat or dog? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your pictures and videos.

Saho Takagi, a psychologist at Kyoto University, said cats, as well as dogs, used memories of a single past experience, which may imply they have episodic memory similar to that of humans.

"Episodic memory is viewed as being related to introspective function of the mind; our study may imply a type of consciousness in cats," she told BBC News. Image copyright T Allen Image caption Do cats enjoy remembering past experiences?

"An interesting speculation is that they may enjoy actively recalling memories of their experience like humans."



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Queens Warehouse Transforms into Makeshift Cat Hospital for Hundreds of Felines Exposed to Bird Flu

By Angi Gonzalez

Sunday, January 15, 2017 at 06:04 PM EST 

A warehouse in Long Island City has been transformed into a makeshift shelter for hundreds of cats being treated for a strain of bird flu. NY1's Angi Gonzalez has the story.

"It'll be great to see these guys get out and go to homes," said Tim Rickey, with ASPCA.

This cat is among more than 500 felines on the road to recovery at this Long Island City warehouse.

"We have about 45 responders here every day providing care for the cats," Rickey said.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — took over two floors of this facility on Austell Place — right after Christmas.

Days earlier, they were tapped by the city’s Animal Care Centers to help quarantine hundreds of cats from three different shelters who'd started showing symptoms of the H7N2 virus — or bird flu.

"The ASPCA has basically an animal emergency response team and whether its disaster or cruelty cases or outbreaks like in this case we travel around the country and provide the necessary people to manage the situation," said Joel Lopez with the society.

It is still unclear just how the cats got sick, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, transmission to both cats and humans is rare.

Still, volunteers and the medical staff caring for the animals, aren't taking any chances suiting up before entering the cat quarantine.

 "We take every necessary precaution to keep our responders safe," Lopez said.

Some clients of a doggy daycare, located in the same building, initially expressed concern about what was going on just few feet away from their pets.  

"They should have told us and let us know that there is something going on in the building," said a dog dare care client.

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