Volunteers toughen up bobcat kitten who's too nice

[n2doc]

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California animal rescue group is trying to help an orphaned bobcat kitten with a problem: She's too nice.


The friendly baby bobcat was only a few weeks old and had burned paws and infected eyes when fire crews found her in August while battling a 75,000-acre fire in the Plumas National Forest. They named her Chips, after the wildfire.

Volunteers at the Sierra Wildlife Rescue in Placerville now are trying to toughen the kitten up, with plans to release her back into the wild next spring, The Sacramento Bee (http://bit.ly/WTOqHJ ) reports.

As part of her training regimen, Chips has had to start chasing down her own mice and rabbits for meals and stop sleeping on a soft bed like the one she'd grown accustomed to while she was receiving medical treatment.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Volunteers-toughen-up-bobcat-kitten-who-s-too-nice-4149186.php

[sasha031]

1. she's so beautiful

I would have her sleeping on feathered beds and serving her meals of her choice.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Poor kitten! Probably she's thinking to herself, "Where's my freshly-prepared

filet of rabbit? Where'd my soft kitteh bed go? THIS IS BULLSHIT!!"

[TlalocW]

3. For some reason I was picturing a drill sargeant.

Where you from, kitty-kitty? Plumas National Forest? There're only two kinds of felines that come out of there - pussies and alley cats! Which one are you?

TlalocW

[Kalidurga]

4. They should keep her as a pet....

she's sweet it is probably too ingrained in her nature. They shouldn't fight nature, just learn to live with her the way she is.

[RKP5637]

6. That's what I think too. If she wants a home like this what's the big deal with it all, keep

her as a pet. We can't all be exactly the same. She might be on an evolutionary domesticated path.

[X_Digger]

9. That wouldn't work once she became sexually mature.

You'd then have a bobcat that can't function in the wild, but can't be a pet, either.

Deconditioning and reintroduction can look cruel, but it's really the best answer.

I was recently watching a show on reintroduction of orangutans in Sumatra, I believe it was, and they touched on this very point.

[Poll_Blind]

10. +1

PB

[Daemonaquila]

11. It's not her "nature" at all.

Most likely, volunteers caused the problem by imprinting her on humans. Now she has to learn how to be a bobcat. Fortunately, a lot of felines can get more independent as they mature, and successfully can be reintroduced to the wild after they prove their skills.

[neverforget]

5. Beautiful bobcat!!

[cui bono]

7. Are these volunteers available to visit Oval Office immediately?

[darkangel218]

8. Poor kitteh :(

You just can't train a sweet kitteh to be mean. If its not in her nature, than they shouldnt release it back into the wild. You can see it on her face how sweet she is.

[Humanist_Activist]

12. Frankly, that won't work, she won't be "sweet" for much longer...

once she reaches sexual maturity, she will be a half-feral animal that is not suitable for human companionship yet also not capable of surviving on her own. The only other options after that is captivity in a zoo or refuge, with little contact with either her kind or humans, or putting her down.

You are placing your expectations of how she should act over her own best interests. She's physically healthy, young, and more than capable of surviving on her own, IF given the mental tools necessary to survive. She is, first and foremost, a wild animal, NOT Mr. Tabby who is sleeping at the foot of your bed.

[darkangel218]

21. Oh please!

There are plenty of animals born and raised in the wild who don't make it due to a soft personality. Don't you think the experts realized there was something a bit off with her development, which is not necessarily relatated with her being raised in captivity?

There are other options, such as wild animals sanctuaries, which would be preferable than releasing her back in the wild with such a timid personality.

BTW, are you always this condescending in your replies?

Have a good night.

[mythology]

14. Probably what Sigfried and Roy said about their tiger

Bobcats aren't the same as domesticated house cats. Wild animals are called wild for a reason.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

13. Oh she is so very beautiful. n/t

[Loudly]

15. Maybe she is a candidate for veganism.

[catbyte]

16. Except she would die. Cats aren't like dogs. They need meat.

[kestrel91316]

18. Cats are obligate carnivores. Vegetarianism is rapidly fatal to them,

let alone veganism.

Where do people come up with these gawdawful ideas????

[Loudly]

19. So consciousness cannot overcome DNA?

Bummer.

[Scootaloo]

22. Nonhumans have different digestion and metablism than humans do

You know how dogs can't have chocolate, because they don't metabolize theobromine the same way humans do?

It's sort of the same way with cats. They can't get taurine from any source other than animal protein. You can feed them all the peas and carrots and your favoritist vegan foods in the world and all that will happen is that your cat will go blind and lose its teeth.

If you're committed to a strict vegan lifestyle, don't own a cat. If you're willing to violate your ethics for the kitty, I would suggest purchasing real meat; see about getting scrap or something from your butcher. Canned cat food is a major contributor to the depletion of oceanic fish stocks, and generally isn't very healthy (like canned food for humans it's formulated for shelf life, not nutrition). Dry food is mostly grain bulk, which is 100% useless for a cat's metabolism.

[flvegan]

23. That's a fail, as proven.

I don't promote it, but don't be false in your assessment. People look to you. Live up to it.

[GreenStormCloud]

17. We had a bobcat when I was a boy.

We had a tame bobcat once when I was a boy in the 1950s. We lived on a ranch in South Texas. Dad was burning a pile of brush that had been pushed up by a bulldozer a few weeks before. He heard mewing and pulled a baby bobkitten from the bushpile. It was a few weeks old, had its teeth so it could eat regular food. We had a mother cat that had kittens and was bringing in rats for her babies. She adopted Blue and he grew rapidly. He was just like any other cat. He loved to jump into my arms and be petted and purred just like any other cat, except bigger. Eventually he got to big to catch rats in the barn and started learning to catch rabbits. That required a larger territory for him to range in so he began to roam over the ranch hunting rabbits. Slowly his hunting trips got longer and longer, until he never returned. I was hunting once, (Dad gave me a shotgun at age eleven.) and saw him. He remembered me, came up to me, allowed himself to be petted, then went on his way. It has been over fifty years and I still fondly remember Blue.

[elehhhhna]

20. awwwwww