News Briefs for the Week of September 2, 2002
By Marcella Durand for Cat Facts
- Catnapping Solved!
It was in newspapers across the country-or at least it should have been. A two-year-old Angora mix named Daisybelle was catnapped in March from the Cat Care Society in Colorado, by a "nice young man" whose address and telephone number turned out to be fakes when the Society made follow-up calls to see how Daisybelle was doing.
But Daisybelle must have been on one of her better nine lives, because when she was found abandoned in an apartment complex in Ohio, she still had her tags on. Local animal shelter workers called the Cat Care Society to let them know their missing charge had been found-and with no ransom to pay.
"We discussed whether we should just let Daisybelle stay there and be adopted from there," says Kathryn Robbins, the shelter adoption assistant at the Society. "But we also felt we had a second chance to do right by this kitty. We wanted to bring her home." Daisybelle's original owner, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, had arranged with the Cat Care Society that Daisybelle would be guaranteed a home for life unless she was adopted into a good family. Since Daisybelle's not-so-excellent adventure, the Society has tightened up adoption procedures.
- Jaguar Census 2002
It's as true in scientific research as in survival of the fittest: adaptation is key. In order to complete the first-ever census of a jaguar population, a team of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) adapted a methodology first developed to count tigers in India. Using a grid of remote camera stations, the team determined population density by analyzing the stripe patterns of cats captured on film and applying a rigid statistical analysis. "The methodology can be used for any cat with a unique striping or spotting," says Linde Ostro, a WCS conservationist who helped lead the team. "It's much more efficient than collaring individual animals, then tracking them for years." The new census revealed that 11 jaguars live in a 55-square-mile area in a dense tropical rain forest in Belize.
The jaguar is one of the world's most elusive big cats and, until now, "scientists have based their efforts as to where to protect jaguars largely on anecdotal evidence," says Ostro. Plans are already under way to use the new census method to count jaguars in areas ranging from Argentina to the Southwest United States. With this new data, scientists will really be able focus their efforts to preserve threatened jaguar populations.
|
