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by BeetleB13 hours ago |
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upvoteby schoen5 hours ago|
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I remember seeing a wildcat in a sanctuary in Costa Rica with a similar story (the kittens looked like housecat kittens, so someone adopted them, but the adult cat's behavior was different enough to be really challenging). I've been trying to remember the exact species I saw there (maybe an oncilla?), but apparently there are several kinds of wildcat fairly easily mistaken for housecats as kittens.

I think not all of them categorically refuse to be pets, but they're noticeably more aggressive and less affectionate compared to housecats.

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upvoteby mlmonkey13 hours ago|
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> Let's see if it (or crossbreeds) can be tamed.

Clearly you are not a cat person ... the question is not if it can be tamed, but how quickly it can tame the humans around it ... ;-)

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upvoteby locallost2 hours ago|
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What do you mean it's the only one known? It got the name because locals called it that way. Locals will not call things they don't normally see.
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upvoteby Nursie1 hours ago|
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Yeah it’s not the only one known.

Unfortunately while people are going wild as if someone found a never-before-seen cat, this is actually more “after genetic analysis we now know that the tiger cats that everyone already knew about in Bolivia are actually a different species to the ones in Brazil”.

But that’s not very exciting so people and news outlets seem to be running with the story as if nobody had ever seen one before.

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upvoteby shevy-java12 hours ago|
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I mean, taming animals is trivial. Look at the lion whisperer. People before that thought that lions are always wild.

Some animals are just harder to tame and remain ferocious more than others. But behaviour of animals is adaptable and most animals learn.

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upvoteby sscaryterry9 hours ago|
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The only reason my house cat has not murdered me is because he is 4kg, and I'm not. He loves me though.
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upvoteby ghaff7 hours ago|
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Cats are not really domesticated. I've heard various terms but semi-domesticated probably serves. They're very adaptable but not pack animals. You're sort of safe with house cats because they're small. You get less safe as the body weight goes up the scale.
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upvoteby gorgoiler6 hours ago|
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It’s funny to hear they are not pack animals. I’m sure that is technically the case, especially in the wild, but my house cats definitely cling to me and follow me around like I am their leader. They groom/fight to try to establish a hierarchy below me, and when my partner comes home from work immediately switch allegiance to her, who they clearly see as the dominant mammal in the house.

They don’t go outside (they can’t really, it’s too busy by the road here and they’d decimate the wildlife, but I live with it because ultimately we’re doing them a huge favor by giving them a home, post-rescue) so I am sure that has something to do with it. Perhaps infantilism is keeping them in this pack headspace? But even then my mother’s cat — rural, murderous, tough tabby tom — treats her like a god and the rest of us as an annoyance.

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upvoteby ghaff5 hours ago|
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As I wrote, they're adaptable. But there's a difference between true pack animals with an established hierarchy and being solitary but being open to other cats and species. Certainly, some cats are more pack-like (lions) and others are, or are more open to, being largely solitary.
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upvoteby WalterBright9 hours ago|
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My cat always looked at me like "if only you were smaller..."
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upvoteby sscaryterry9 hours ago|
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I'd be getting scared when a cat reaches the 20kg threshold. I'm about 90kg, so thats a 4.5x ratio :)

Cats are the perfect killing machines (apart from maybe sharks) :)

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upvoteby WalterBright9 hours ago|
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There's a bobcat that lives around here. He's on my porch now and then, and I also see its tracks in the snow.

It doesn't look like it wants to be petted. I stay clear.

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upvoteby jstrieb5 hours ago|
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Many people don't know that Craigslist has a "best of" which includes this (relevant) post that makes me laugh every time I read it:

https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/ric/6881185958.html

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upvoteby WalterBright4 hours ago|
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Yep, a bobcat. But much smaller than the one around here.
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upvoteby fhe3 hours ago|
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my cat at its peak weight is about 8kg, and that's the size that i'd get a bit nervous around if i didn't know it's a tame housecat that runs away at sight of a mouse...
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upvoteby anjel3 hours ago|
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See also "why you should never put a chimp and a little person in the same room" by Penn Gillette
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upvoteby FpUser7 hours ago|
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>"I'd be getting scared when a cat reaches the 20kg threshold" - most likely even 10kg cat will shred you before you could blink. They're insanely fast and surprisingly strong for size. Furry explosives they are
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upvoteby tobyhinloopen4 hours ago|
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My main coon is over 10kg and is basically harmless
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upvoteby WalterBright9 hours ago|
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A tamed lion ripped the face off of Melanie Griffith.
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upvoteby quickthrowman7 hours ago|
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I still need to watch that movie, I feel obligated to see it after so many people suffered so many injuries while filming it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roar_(film)#Injuries_and_set_d...

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upvoteby olvy01 hours ago|
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And you'd think Tippi Hedren would have learned not to go around wild, untamed animals after what her character wrnt through in The Birds!
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upvoteby WalterBright5 hours ago|
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I've watched a lot of horror shows that had no effect on me. But this one wasn't a horror show, it was for real. I found it very disturbing. I couldn't believe what I was watching.
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upvoteby quickthrowman12 hours ago|
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I think the lady that got mauled to death in 2018 at the lion preserve that guy works at might disagree with you if she hadn’t been y’know, mauled to death by a lion.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/28/africa/woman-killed-lion-...

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upvoteby reaperducer12 hours ago|
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I mean, taming animals is trivial.

FTFA: "The man took the animal home, believing it to be a domestic breed. But after about a year of living with the clearly wild animal, he realized it would be better off at a sanctuary."

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upvoteby shagie8 hours ago|
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There's a YouTube (and other) channel out there about a guy and his (I use the possessive with caveats) coyote (named Weave). His motto is "Anything can be a pet if you don’t mind getting bit."
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