We would like to welcome Chris Wathen as a new advertiser on the website. Chris is located in Belmont, near Hereford ad currently has snow marble bengal kittens available. They will be GCCF registered and ready to go to new homes on the 29th July. See breeder ad for full details.
It has been reported this week that the world’s fastest land animal suffers in captivity from AA amyloidosis, a disease of misshapen proteins somewhat like BSE. Scientists suggest that cheetahs may contract the disease by eating each other’s faecal matter - which contains amyloid proteins - perhaps when they are grooming.
Tahoe Bengals, located in South Lake Tahoe, CA have 2 male bengal kittens available foir adoption. Born February 22, they are now ready to go to forever homes. See breeder advertisement for full details, more photos and contact information.
ON SAFARI 2008 BENGAL CONGRESSES AND SYMPOSIUM
Join Bengal breeders from all over the country (and out of it!), and see some of the best Bengals in the world, at the 13th Annual “On Safari” Bengal Congresses & Symposium on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 3, 4, and
5 October 2008. We are being generously hosted by LA Cats in Longview, Texas. The show hotel is La Quinta Inn & Suites, 3416 Martin Luther King Blvd, Longview, TX 75605, (903) 238-9965, www.lq.com.
SATURDAY EVENING SYMPOSIUM AND BANQUET on 4 October 2008.
Dinner and Symposium start promptly at 7:00 pm. The Symposium presentation will be on the History of the Bengal Cat and Celebration of Jean Mill, our originator. For those of you who weren’t able to attend Jean’s retirement party, Anthony Hutcherson gave a wonderful celebration of Jean’s vision that started our Bengal breed, and the pathways that our breed has traveled. And now Anthony has generously agreed to present a much expanded presentation on the “History of the Bengal Cat” for On Safari 2008. If you want to know where our beloved breed came from, how it was developed, and the ups and downs along the way, join us as Anthony takes us for a walk back in time to the beginnings of the Bengal breed. Tickets for the banquet are $35 and can be purchased on the show entry form. Please enter early!!
RAFFLE
The LA Cats has generously offered us the show raffle on Saturday this year, which will seriously boost On Safari revenue. Please, please offer your raffle items so that there will be an On Safari 2009! Pat Harbert will be our raffle coordinator this year and can be contacted at ohmycats@… if you would like to send donations for the raffle ahead of time.
BENGAL CONGRESSES
3 RING BENGAL CONGRESSES on Friday, 3 October. And this year we welcome our judges; Pam Barrett, Bobbie Tullo, and Steven Savant! We are planning Kitten, Adult and Alter rings (each one judged by all three
judges) and will start judging at 3pm. This year we also have room for CONGRESS ONLY CATS, ALTERS AND KITTENS, so if you have cats that you would like to show only in the congresses and not in the show, they will be allowed. Registration and information for these congresses will be on the Show Flyer (which will be coming out very soon. We’ll announce it, but will also post it on the On Safari website (www.onsafari.org). We also have an incredible lineup of judges for the rest of the show!
Numerous awards will be presented, including awards for All Around Best Male and Female Congress Winners in all 3 classes, and an astonishing variety of Breeder’s Choice awards (which we will be posting shortly).
We welcome donations and extra category awards. Show Photographer is Helmi.
For information about the Show, go to: La Cats - October 3-5, 2008
For information about ON SAFARI, check out the show flyer listed above, the website at http://onsafari.org/
14 tiger cubs have been spotted in a reserve in north-western India, forestry officials say.
The sightings are a rare piece of good news in the fight to halt the steep decline in tiger numbers in India.
Forestry officials in Ranthambhore National Park in Rajasthan say the cubs are from several mothers and have been seen regularly in recent months.
Ranthambore had just 32 tigers at the last count. India is thought to have 1,500 tigers, half the world’s total.
But conservationists say they face extinction unless urgent action is taken to save them.
Ranthambore has seen tiger numbers fall from 46 in 2004.
The park authorities are currently conducting a new tiger census and up-to-date figures - which will include the new cubs - are expected in June.
RS Shekhawat, deputy field director at Ranthambore, said the sightings of the cubs was “good news for all of us”.
“Credit goes to both governments - state and federal, the forest authorities and also local people for this positive development,” he told the BBC.
Ranthambore covers 392 sq.km. of dry deciduous forests sprawling over undulating terrain. The BBC’s Narayan Bareth in Jaipur says forest officials want more space for the tigers.
“We are contemplating expanding the habitat area for the tiger population because the population is on the rise,” Mr Shekhawat said.
Nearly 100 villages surround the park, and the more the tiger population grows the more they are likely to come into conflict with humans.
The Wildlife Trust of India’s state co-ordinator, Mahendra Kachhawa, urged the authorities to tighten security at the park. In 2005 it was reported that tigers had been wiped out at another park in Rajasthan, the Sariska sanctuary. That prompted the setting up of a tiger taskforce in India.
Wildlife experts welcomed the latest news, saying they also had information about sightings of tiger cubs in other reserves.
We would like to welcome Secret Spot as new advertisers to the website. Located in Big Rapids, Michigan, Secret Spot currently have 2 brown marble male bengal kittens available. They will be TICA registered, have 2 sets of shots and up to date wormings. They will be ready to go to forever homes on June 22nd. See breeder ad for more details, photos and contact info.
Globengal, located in Stoneycreek, Ontario, Canada has litters of Gold, Brown, Silver, Tri colored Marbles & Snows, Silver Glittered or Gold Glittered Spotted, Rosetted or Donuts Bengal Kittens available which will be ready to go to forever homes during May. See breeder ad for full details, photos and contact info.
Big cats living in Kenya’s Maasai Mara game reserve are being threatened by a collapse in revenues from wildlife tourism, it has been claimed.
The Mara Conservancy says tourists have stayed away since the violence which followed last year’s disputed election.
The group, which manages a 510 sq km area called the Mara Triangle, can no longer pay pastoralists compensation for cattle killed by lions or leopards.
This could force local people to kill the cats in order to protect livestock.
William Deed, from the Mara Conservancy, said that it was facing a shortfall of $50,000 per month.
The non-profit organisation relies on a percentage of park entrance fees paid by tourists.
Since it was founded in 2001, and the compensation scheme established, the number of lions in the reserve has doubled to 80.
But now the fund has been suspended, some Maasai have threatened to resume hunting the lions and leopards which kill their cows, goats and sheep.
“We have now had several close calls with locals hunting lions and leopards in return for the cattle that have been killed by these predators,” said Mr Deed.
“Previously, the cattle compensation scheme we had in place would help placate such situations, however with no funding to pay for such a scheme the local communities are no longer seeing the benefits of living so closely with the wildlife.”
He said the current situation was leading to strained relations with local communities.
The Mara Conservancy has met with local elders, but each time one of their animals is killed with no money for compensation, the “tension mounts”, Mr Deed explained.
“It may be only a matter of time until rangers won’t be so lucky in stopping cattle owners from taking their own measures to protect cattle,” he added.
Cuts in electricity are also making the job of rangers increasingly dangerous. Part of their job involves catching armed cattle rustlers who often make their escape through the Mara Triangle.
But the area now lacks power for 11 hours out of every 24, meaning that communications are often down between the main station and patrol teams.
The dire funding situation has also forced the organisation to stop night patrols.
Poachers were already profiting from the situation, said Mr Deed: groups of men had been seen using torches to hunt Thomson Gazelles at night.
Last month, the rangers have caught five poachers, including three men who killed a hippo for its meat.
Even though the worst of the violence in Kenya has subsided, Mr Deed said it would take time for the tourist trade to pick up again.
For now, he explained, the organisation was operating only on small donations from individuals across the world.
April was a strong month, both in terms of visitor numbers and new advertisers on the website.
This month we welcomed fourteen new breeders; 11 from the US and 3 from the UK
In April, visitors viewed 79,778 pages on the website - slightly up on March, despite there being a day less in the month. There were 15,114 visitors to the website.
Other statistics so the Google PageRank of the homepage and the blog climb from PR3 -> PR4 and many of the internal pages of the website also increased as well.
Beausancy Bengals, located in Halesowen in the West Midlands have three female brown spotted Bengal kittens for sale. They will be GCCF registered and are now ready go go to new homes, See breeder advertisement for photos, further details and contact info.
