This question is for John and for anyone else who works with kats.

I certainly can't claim that I "work with kats".  I'm just lucky enough to get to play with a few of them from time to time.  

For me, it was just a lucky break that some wonderful people noticed my comic strip and fell in love with Sandusky.  If WildCat Haven or the people who own the twin cougars lived nearer to me, I would most assuredly visit more than once every three or four months.  Then, I could claim that I worked with kats.

This is the kind of question that inadvertently causes novels  Cat-people all seem to have their own interesting story--and how they came to work with cats is the easy part.  It's what they had to do to stick with it, or how they manage to keep going that really makes things interesting

There's an evasive answer if I ever saw one, SW..

I've been fascinated with cats (specifically tigers) ever since I was a little kid. However, up until a few years ago, the most involvement I'd had with big cats was that I would usually linger at their enclosures at the zoo a bit longer.

Then in 2004, I went to Thailand on vacation. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a few thousand words:

http://www.bigrig.org/gallery/tigers

That was the beginning -- I was hooked. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and I was only in Thailand for two weeks.

About six months later, I moved to the US to start a new job in Florida, and I ended up getting involved with two sanctuaries here. The second one panned out better, and I quickly got an opportunity to start handling cubs. As those cubs grew up, I've continued handling them, and I've also started handling some cougars (but not tigers) that I did not know when they were cubs.

The work IS somewhat dangerous (people are always asking me if I know what happened to Roy Horn, and yes, I'm aware that can happen to me too), but oh so rewarding. I'm always learning something new, going on my third year of doing this now.  

--Last edited by stian on 2007-09-26 02:34:17 --

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stian wrote : There's an evasive answer if I ever saw one, SW..

All apologies for being evasive, but it's partially true.  The story usually starts "I have always been fascinated by cats since I was a kid."  And while out in the public, you see these kids--'handlers of the future'.  They're the ones that rush toward the cage like they are rushing toward their best friend as their parents quietly freak out.  You know the type.  They're either the next jackass stars, or that rare breed that ultimately enters their world.

My story is no different when it comes to the interest, but changes when it comes to where that interest led.  I started actively studying them in the early 90s, as I once played on a football team called the 'Tigers'.  I would watch documentary after documentary, and got my 'cat fix' by doing academic research--Adamson, Schaller, Packer, Corbett, all giants in the world of big cats.  Stories like Born Free and A Lion named Christian started a peculiar theory in my head regarding big cat communication.  It was not formalized at that early point, but it boiled down to the juxtaposition of what people SAY big cats are, and what reality is.

It's a fact that books give impressions, which is great with fictional worlds.  But given the handful that ever really engage them, the world of the big cats is largely fictional.  When people go to the zoo, they don't SEE a tiger, lion, leopard, or cougar.  They see a representation of a character that has been created by popular media and mother culture.  They see "predator" or "man-eater" or "they can turn on you in an instant".  They see "Sigfried and Roy", "Shere-Khan", and "The Lion King."  It is the only way for most people to incorporate the species into their world.

But they were unknowingly just scratching the surface--like a frontiersman visiting an unknown tribe and observing them for the first time.  My theories revolved around several questions: the accessibility of big cat communication to people, the techniques used to speak and learn their language, and the engagement of cats as a culture as opposed to the antiquated view of other species as pets.

On this, I was given a grant to travel the country to study big cats in 1998 and began hands-on work in 2002.  That answers your question--but that's where the story stops being conventional and enters the realm of extraordinary.

Much better -- thank you SW

I'd really like to hear more about your theories on cat communications sometime.  

--Last edited by stian on 2007-09-26 10:52:26 --

I like them... and a small one inherited me.
Now if I could just get him to stop raiding the laundry basket in search of dirty socks...

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Now if I could just get him to stop raiding the laundry basket in search of dirty socks...

I suppose that's better than Simba raiding the clean socks.

Speaking of Simba, have you ever given him an empty (used) pizza box to play with?  The bobcats up at WildCat Haven go crazy over them.  They roll around like they're rolling in catnip.  Even stranger, it's only the "domestic" ones.  The wild bobcats (even the ones who are more used to people) couldn't care less about empty pizza boxes.

Hmm, we don't eat that much pizza, but I know what I'm ordering tonight!!!
And he REALLY likes any kind of box. (Like most kats) They just end up in shreds all over the house though.
I'll have to say the recent toy of choice is the golfballs that you can use at night on the driving range. (They have a blinking LED in them) He will bat/carry it around for hours.

Let me know how it goes with the pizza box.  If he enjoys it as much as the WCH bobcats do, you might be ordering a lot more pizza in the future.  ;)

Wilderness tip: pizza boxes make excellent kindling for bonfires. ;-)

Maybe this is a stupid question but..

...where do you find a steady supply of pizza boxes when you're out camping?

Just finished a nice pepperoni and mushroom pizza tonight, the box was only casually sniffed, then laid in, then the corner flap was used for chin scratching, followed by some more agressive gnawing. But that was it.

Wish I could say the same for the roll of toliet paper in the second bathroom. Funfetti anyone?

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Wish I could say the same for the roll of toliet paper in the second bathroom. Funfetti anyone?

no thank you.  but you've reminded me of the time my last kitty got up onto the kitchen sink, latched onto the end of the paper towels, and ran round and round the first floor of my townhouse.  i came home from work to find the entire roll of paper towels unrolled, and a paper towel mess leading me from the front door, through the living room, dining room, into the kitchen.  it was then i learned it doesn't matter how one hangs the paper towels (unlike the toilet paper -- free end UNDER so kitty can't keep batting the roll, watching it spin and the toilet paper creating a mountain on the floor of one's bathroom).

*surreptitiously TPs the website*

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stian wrote : Maybe this is a stupid question but.. ...where do you find a steady supply of pizza boxes when you're out camping?

What, you don't stop at your local pizzaria for a few pies before you head out? You'll never be much of a Chicago-style camper.

Of course, Chicago-style camping means "head west to the Mississippi, or north to Bong Preserve or south to Starved Rock and drink with your buddies until you fall asleep."

Since I know neither of us drinks alcohol, I guess neither of us would make a good Chicago-style camper.

I certainly wouldn't last long trying to go camping in Chicago, because once I get my hands on a Chicago pizza, priority number one in the world is to eat it.

Mmm Mmm Goood!

SW,

I'm also curious about the language of the kats.  I read a newspaper article about cats which said that domestic cats don't have a universal spoken language, that each cat has its own.    I'm not sure I believe that.  When I got a kitten 2 years ago, I don't remember having to learn what she meant, yet I can usually understand my cats' meanings, verbal or body language.  At least the basics.

I speak English and some Spanish (because Bunker keeps turning to Sabado Gigante when I fall asleep in front of the TV).

All of the big cats I know at the zoo speak English.  Well, Javier (the jaguar) speaks something a little closer to Spanglish.  As for domestics, I only know Goliath, and he doesn't speak at all.