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Cats Protect Newborns From Developing Asthma

Posted on November 11, 2017  Comments (0)

Everyone should appreciate the value of cats (as we do, honoring cats in our blog’s name); yet some people seem oblivious to the greatness of cats. In another demonstration of what we gain by associating with cats, research has shown living with cats as newborns helps protect those with a specific gene variation from developing asthma.

Cats protect newborns against asthma

The results reveal that cats remove the increased risk of developing asthma among children with a particular variation of the gene 17q21, called TT, which has the strongest impact on whether or not a child could develop asthma.

Almost one in three children in the study carried the TT gene variant, regardless of whether or not their mother had asthma.

“it looks like the effect is linked to a particular gene-variant, which goes to show just how complex the development of asthma and allergies are. It’s not only about genes and the environment, but how the two interact, and there’s so much that we still don’t know,”

The research indicates that cats reduce the risk of childhood asthma, pneumonia, and bronchiolitis in genetically susceptible subjects.

And no, dogs do not provide this protection. As with most research the scientists have new paths of inquiry to follow based on these results. Lead author Jakob Stokholm suspects that the reasons cats have this effect but dogs do not, “could be related to the bacteria that cats carry and perhaps fungi or viruses that they bring into the home”. Those questions can be the topic of further research.

Related: Cat Allergy Vaccine Created (2011) – Awesome Cat Cam – The History of Domestic Cats – Parasites in the Gut Help Develop a Healthy Immune System – Hypoallergenic Cats (2006) – The Amazing Reality of Genes and The History of Scientific Inquiry

Mountain Lion Roams from South Dakota all the way to 30 Miles from Manhattan

Posted on June 4, 2016  Comments (1)

book cover with image of a mountain lion

A Cougar’s Thousand-Mile Quest to Find a Mate

In the late summer of 2009, a young male cougar set off from the Black Hills of South Dakota to look for a mate. And kept going—east across the Great Plains to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and on to New England, through backyards and parking lots, across highways and railroad tracks, driven by the most powerful force on earth.
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Over time he showed up in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and in Wisconsin. He disappeared for a couple months, then shows up almost two years later, 30 miles from Manhattan, in Greenwich, Connecticut. In all he probably traveled 2,000 to 5,000 miles, enough to cross the country twice. He forded all the major rivers of the East, navigated highways and an international boundary. It was one of the most spectacular journeys by an animal ever recorded.

image of map showing the cougar's path across usa

In Heart of a Lion: A Lone Cat’s Walk Across America William Stolzenburg provides an exciting tale of the cat’s journey.

Related: Backyard Wildlife: Mountain Lion (2012) – Mountain Lions Returning to the Midwest USA for the First Time in a Century (2012) – Big Cats in America (2004) – USA Designates Large Areas of New Mexico and Arizona as Critical Habitat for Jaguars (2014)

Camera Trap Images of Very Rare Wild Cats

Posted on March 28, 2015  Comments (4)

This video show some wonderful images from remote cameras equipped to film when an animal is spotted. These camera have aided scientists in understanding wildlife in their natural environment and also by providing us cool images.

Related: Rare Chinese Mountain Cat – Bornean Clouded Leopard – Photos of Rare Saharan Cheetah and Other Wildlife – Scottish Highland Wildcats

USA Designates Large Areas of New Mexico and Arizona as Critical Habitat for Jaguars

Posted on September 13, 2014  Comments (0)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated 764,200 acres of critical habitat for the jaguar (Panthera onca) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This habitat is found within Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties in Arizona, and Hidalgo County in New Mexico.

The final rule reflects the following changes from the July 1, 2013, critical habit at proposal: exclusion of Tohono O’odham Nation lands (78,067 acres) as a result of the Tribe’s efforts working in partnership with the Service to conserve jaguar and other listed species’ habitat on the Nation’s sovereign land. Exemption of Fort Huachuca lands (15,867 acres) due to the conservation benefits to the jaguar provided in Fort Huachuca’s approved Integrated Natural Resource Management Plan.

The revised proposal was based on an updated habitat modeling report that more accurately reflected habitat essential to jaguars in northwestern Mexico and southwestern United States.

Mexico borderlands area is very different from habitat in Central and South America, where jaguars show a high affinity for lowland wet communities. Jaguars have been documented in arid areas of northwestern Mexico and southwestern United States, including thornscrub, desertscrub, lowland desert, mesquite grassland, Madrean oak woodland and pine oak woodland communities. Critical habitat in the United States contributes to the jaguar’s persistence and recovery across the species’ entire range by providing areas to support individuals that disperse into the United States from the nearest core population in Mexico.

Critical habitat is a term defined in the ESA and identifies geographic areas containing features essential to the conservation of a threatened or endangered species and that may require special management considerations or protection. The designation of critical habitat does not affect land ownership or establish a refuge, and has no impact on private landowners taking actions on their land that do not require federal funding or permits.

Related: Jaguars Back in the Southwest USA (2006 post) – Big Cats in America (2004) – Mountain Lions Returning to the Midwest USA for the First Time in a Century (2012) – Backyard Wildlife: Mountain Lion

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Skateboarding Cat

Posted on May 12, 2014  Comments (2)

A fun way to start out the week: skateboarding cat.

Related: Friday Fun, Cat Playing Ping Pong – Cat Using the Doorbell – Cats and Kids with iPads

Science Facts About Cats

Posted on April 4, 2013  Comments (0)

Related: Domestic Cats Remain Successful Predators – Backyard Wildlife: Mountain Lion – Friday Fun: Cats and Kids with iPads

Friday Fun: Cat Playing Ping Pong

Posted on November 30, 2012  Comments (1)

Related: Robot Playing Table Tennis – Monkey and Kitten Playing – Exercise Wheels for Dogs and Cats – Kindergarten Students Pedel Their Own Bus to School

Friday Fun: Gibbon Plays with Tiger Cubs

Posted on November 9, 2012  Comments (0)

While this gibbon appears to be playing with the tiger cubs I am not sure the tigers see it as play.

Related: Monkey and Kitten Playing – Friday Fun: Kitten and Bunny – Sumatran Tiger and Cubs Filmed by Remote Wildlife Monitoring Cameras – Cat and Crow Friends

Domestic Cats Remain Successful Predators

Posted on August 7, 2012  Comments (1)

House cats kill more critters than thought by Elizabeth Weise

While only 30% of roaming house cats kill prey — two animals a week on average — they are still slaying more wildlife than previously believed, according to research from the University of Georgia.
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The cats brought home just under a quarter of what they killed, ate 30% and left 49% to rot where they died.

The carnage cuts across species. Lizards, snakes and frogs made up 41% of the animals killed, Loyd and fellow researcher Sonia Hernandez found. Mammals such as chipmunks and voles were 25%, insects and worms 20% and birds 12%.
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Seeking a window into the hidden lives of cats, the researchers recruited 60 owners in the Athens, Ga., area. Each owner put a small video camera mounted on a break-away collar on the cat in the morning and let the cat out, then removed the camera and downloaded the footage each night.

Interesting data. As I wrote about before you can get your very own cat cam and see what your cat is up to. I posted an interview I did with the engineer that designs and sells the cat cams.

Related: Video Cat Camera – Photos by Fritz the Cat – Sumatran Tiger and Cubs Filmed by Remote Wildlife Monitoring Cameras

Mountain Lions Returning to the Midwest USA for the First Time in a Century

Posted on June 15, 2012  Comments (0)

Cougars Are Returning to the U.S. Midwest after More Than 100 Years by John Platt

Cougars once lived throughout most of the U.S. and Canada but state-sponsored bounties put in place to protect livestock and humans from what were often deemed “undesirable predators” led to the cats’ extermination in the east and Midwest.
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Things started to turn around for the cougar in the 1960s and 70s when, one by one, the bounties were rescinded and states made the animals a managed-game species. Today they are classified as game species in most states and a “specially protected mammal” in California. This allowed their populations first to grow and then to expand their territories.
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Cougars are generalist predators, so LaRue says they can select any habitat with enough prey. They have also been shown to walk hundreds of kilometers in search of new habitat. “They have no problem traveling through cornfields or prairies for long distances if they have to,” she says. But cornfields and prairies aren’t suitable habitat for the cougars to settle in. She says they require forest cover, rugged terrain and dispersal corridors (typically rivers) that allow easy migration for both the cats and their prey.

Mountain Lions are very cool animals. So like our pets but with a size that means they can kill us, if they want. They are not much risk to us though. Occasionally there are attacks (now that the numbers of cougars are growing) but an extremely small number.

Data from the city of Boulder, Colorado:

There has been an average of 0.2 annual human deaths in all of North America from mountain lions between 1900 and 2007. This number is very low compared to annual deaths from black widow spiders (1.4 between 1950-1989), domestic dogs (16 between 1979-1998) and car crashes (45,000 between 1980-2005).

Related: Mountain Lion Foundation timeline – Backyard Wildlife: Mountain Lion – Jaguars Back in the Southwest USA
(2006) – Big Cats in America (2004) – Snow Leopard Playing in the Snow in Ohio

Video of Kittens Being Rescued by Their Mother

Posted on May 11, 2012  Comments (1)

Repost of this fun cat video and a reminder to thank your mother for all the times she saved you from your version of the slide. Have a happy friday. Maybe you should forward this video to your Mom with a note of thanks and make it a happy one for her too.

Related: Housecat Adopts Bobcat Kittens – Mother cat with bunnies and kittens – Cat playing with ball you control with your smart phone – Naturally Curious Children