Comment by BeetleB
15 hours ago
Let's see if it (or crossbreeds) can be tamed.
This particular one was actually being kept in a house because someone confused it for a "pretty housecat". After a while, the owner realized it didn't want to be tamed and contacted someone for help.
Also, it's the only known one in existence. Hard to start a breeding program unless they find more.
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.
> 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 ... ;-)
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.
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.
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.
The only reason my house cat has not murdered me is because he is 4kg, and I'm not. He loves me though.
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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My cat always looked at me like "if only you were smaller..."
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My main coon is over 10kg and is basically harmless
A tamed lion ripped the face off of Melanie Griffith.
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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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-...
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."
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."