These Linguists Want to Help You Speak Fluent Cat

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Science of Us 27 April 2016: "There’s a mystery in The Aristocats — that classic 1970 Disney movie about felines falling in love, dodging murder, and prowling around Paris — that no one has been able to satisfyingly explain: Why, when all of the cats are French, do they have such a wide variety of accents? Family matriarch Duchess is vaguely French, I guess, but O’Malley the alley cat is American, and I don’t even know what the kittens are — British, maybe.

The simplest explanation, if we’re going to seriously engage with the linguistics of a kids’ movie about anthropomorphic cats, is that they have different accents for the same reason humans do: They’re all from different places. Previous research has found that whales, cows, and macaques all have their own regional..." read on.

Ferals, Strays and Barn Cats

The Columbian Blogs 25 April 2016: "You’ve seen them around, cats that seem to have no home and may be skittish towards you. These are cats that have either lost their home and have to fend for their self or they were born in the wild. These are usually called stray or feral cats. A stray cat is one that has been socialized to people at some point in her life, but has left or lost her domestic home, as well as most human contact and dependence. A feral cat may never have had any contact with humans or her contact was minimal. She is fearful of people and survives on her own outdoors. You can often find colonies of these cats around out-buildings on country property. They are sometimes called barn cats or farm cats.

When not properly taken care of, they can live miserable lives. Over population, diseases and predators are some of the dangers that these cats face. But people are often the biggest danger to these cats. People get upset with the number of cats on their property and they shoot, poison, drown or torture the cats. Some will trap the cats and take them to the..." read on

Valletta Cruise Port teams up with Tomasina cat sanctuary to home 8 cats

Valletta Cruise Port teams up with cat sanctuary to find home for eight abandoned cats

Malta Today 20 April 2016: As part of its corporate social responsibility programme, Valletta Cruise Port has teamed up with Tomasina Cat Sanctuary to find a home for eight cats that had been abandoned at Valletta Waterfront in 2015.

Volunteers at Tomasina  successfully caught these cats and took them to a vet, who performed deworming, vaccination and neutering programmes.

The cats are now available for homing.

“It is indeed a pity that these cats were irresponsibly dumped outside, at the mercy of the elements, often risking being injured or killed by passing vehicles. As the company operating one of Malta’s leading entertainment destinations, set in a historical backdrop, and a key stakeholder in the local cruise liner industry, Valletta Cruise Port’s role goes beyond that of...read on.