Catfight over UC Merced mascot - Animal rights advocate wants bobcat freed in wild

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/8/5 | Tanya Schevitz

[SmithL]

UC Merced has adopted a live bobcat kitten at the local zoo to be its "Golden Bobcat" mascot, but animal rights advocates say the cat should rightfully be returned to the wild.

Critics say the city-run zoo and the university want to keep the animal for publicity as the new campus prepares for its opening in late August. They also assert that state wildlife biologists failed to ensure that the animal got its best chance to be released from captivity.

"This is a little baby that ought to go back to the wild," said Lydia Miller, a longtime opponent of the new UC Merced project and president of the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center. "There is nothing wrong with him, and for the UC to go ahead and exploit a species as a zoo exhibit or a mascot is wrong. I don't like the idea of live mascots. I think it is really obscene."

The 4-month-old bobcat, covered with mites and fleas, was found April 21 abandoned in a closed satchel next to a trash can at Merced's Applesgate Zoo. The state Department of Fish and Game determined that for its own safety it should not be released and allowed the zoo to keep the kitten.

But critics sent protest letters last week to Merced city officials, as well as state Department of Fish and Game administrators, complaining that the state made its decision based on the recommendation of the zoo and a local veterinarian. Instead, they wrote, the bobcat should be independently evaluated for release by a rehabilitation center.

Miller has tangled with the city and university before. In 2001, she successfully stopped construction of the university in an area that would jeopardize sensitive wetlands and the tiny freshwater fairy shrimp that live there....

[SmithL]

This 4-month-old bobcat has been adopted by UC Merced as the school's mascot.

[SmithL]

Kitty Fight

[theDentist]

It'd be dead inside a week, Lydia.

[Mercat]

awwwwwww, how cute. We were recently adopted by a desert lynx mix exotic kitten. My vet doesn't approve, I can tell. He's probably going to grow to 20 pounds... absolutely beautiful and the smartest cat I've ever had. At three months he already weighs almost 6 pounds. He already knows his name and the word, "no." Kitty ping btw.

[Issaquahking]

This kitty looks like a new viking kitty patroller to me!

In all seriousness the enviro-whacks scream for the cat to be released to the wild. What they fail to realize is the cat would probably die within a month, as it hasn't spent time with the mother learning skills to be a great killer yet. I say let him live a long life as a mascot! (Some people terrorists in Gitmo say they prefer three hots and a cot, it may be better than where they came from)

Glades guru, your the cat expert, any comments?

[GladesGuru]

Your use of the term "enviro-whack" is too kind. by far. If the bob cat hs had no chance to learn to be a bob cat in terms of hunting skill acquisition from the mother, which it clearly has not - any "release" into the "wild" will result in the death of the bob cat.

I fear what you are describing is an all too common case of some drooling activist salivating at the chance to get some press coverage which will stimulate the cash flow to teh activist's coffers.

I suggest that the "animal activist" offer its self for transportation to the "wild" instead of the bobcat. There, naked and unable to feed its self, it can become one with the wild.

Be it coyote food, panther food, vulture food, or wolf food, that activist can experience what would have happened to that bobcat.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the activist to volunteer, though. It is probably too busy counting the take from the naive believers who contribute to bachelor's children like that "activist".

[GladesGuru]

" the bobcat should be independently evaluated for release by a rehabilitation center."

The activist who said that need to call it's psychiatrist at once and get it's meds adjusted. Animal rehab centers are based upon a faulty premise - that saving an injured animal is both good and helps "the environment".

Usually, such rehabs accomplish neither. Animals breed in excess, and compete for survival. That is why there are enough animals to populate available habitat.

As for the "goodness" or more likely the "feel good-ness" of 'saving' an individual animal, that is a matter of how one wants to spend ones disposable income.

If someone wants to keep an animal for whatever reason, that is their business.

Many animal rehab groups are very short on scientific knowledge and professional/educational expertise.

Even more are well equipped with animal rights whackos and are deeply committed to animal rights philosophies.

Interestingly, some of those whackos came to my place some years ago. My Irish wolfhound walked up to them, as he always did to visitors. But after looking at them for several seconds, with no sign from me, he began to bay at them

They left. Rapidly. Ya just can't BS an Irish wolfhound. ;-)


Moral: Animals know animal activists better than do most presstitutes.

[Graycliff]

Love BobCats, I've have at least 8 full time residents on my place. If one of my hunters were to so much as harm one I'd come unglued. Thats the first thing i tell them, under no circumstance do you shoot one of my cats.

[Mr. Jeeves]

"This is a little baby that ought to go back to the wild," said Lydia Miller, a longtime opponent of the new UC Merced project and president of the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center.

The real agenda is revealed. ;)

[GladesGuru]

"The real agenda is revealed. ;)"

Jawohl, mein Heer! Agenda Uber Alles! thought Lydia Miller.

OK - maybe 'thought' isn't quite the right word. But I am trying to be a compassionate conservative.

[teenyelliott]

In my idiotic opinion, this kitten is very lucky. It would have died if not taken in by the zoo, and it would have died if returned to the wild.

These numb nuts wackos should be fighting to have every animal in a zoo or sanctuary be released into the wild. Wouldn't that be the "right" thing to do?

Please. These morons fail to realize the important scientific advancements that zoos contribute, due to their study of all zoo animals, as well as the importance of breeding programs. Most zoos are a blessing, for the animals living there as well as in the wild.

[Slings and Arrows]

Thanks for the ping!
---
Kitty Ping List alert!

[Freepmail me to get on or off the Kitty Ping List.]

[Moose4]

Ping...think we finally found a cat with bigger fee than Livingston!

}:-)4

[quantim]

"This is a little baby that ought to go back to the wild,"

This little baby needs to get adopted by me while I spoil it rotten and train it and eat that specific little white dog next door.  Of course I'd spend a few weeks in prison to do so.  That's a lot shorter time than the sleep it takes away from our household.

</pet fun>

[Finger Monkey]

I want one.

[Luna]

"This is a little baby that ought to go back to the wild,"

Sure. And the poor baby would be KILLED out there in the wild. What does an orphan bobcat know about surviving in the wild? You're so compassionate. These idiots seem to think that a baby animal can instinctively survive in the wild on its own. They don't know that Mama (in mammals, especially) teaches her babies how to survive. Just shows animal-rights wackos don't know anything about animals.

"There is nothing wrong with him, and for the UC to go ahead and exploit a species as a zoo exhibit or a mascot is wrong. I don't like the idea of live mascots. I think it is really obscene."

You've expressed your opinion. Now keep your nose out of the UC's business and go back to your cave.