Your Afternoon Animal Fix

If you have any fun or interesting animal/pet photos or news please shoot me an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say what neighborhood you’re from or upload to the PoPville flickr pool. I can’t guarantee I’ll get them all posted but I’ll do my best.

“In honor of the upcoming warm weather, Miss Scarlett enjoying one of her favorite pastimes, swimming and running wild along the banks of the Potomac.

We live in Adams Morgan.”

Nautilus cat

“Ren. Hunkered down and trying to get through the winter. Bald in the winter really bites.”

And while we’re talking about cats:

“Dear PoP,

Thought this might be of interest for your readers. It’s a study from the American Bird Conservency that was done in the DC suburbs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/science/21birds.html?ref=us
http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/110314.html
It shows that cats are the #1 killer of grey catbirds. It’s important to note that this particular bird species not particularly rare or in any way endangered – http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/147687/0

But cats do not discriminate.  If they’re killing catbirds, it means they’re killing other birds, including other native birds and some rare ones too.  That’s the motivation behind the Cats Indoors campaign – http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/index.html

I happened to be at a cookout friday night at a friend’s on Spring Rd. between 10th and Rock Creek Church Roads.  A car with Maryland tags pulled up in the alley and the driver filled bowls for the strays in the alley.  My friends said that the cat food is a boon for rats.  There certanly were a lot of cats in the alley too.  I doubt that those particular cats kill many threatened or endangered birds but what do folks think about people feeding strays, particularly people from out of the neighborhood? Personally, I would be livid if this were my alley.”

Photo by PoPville flickr user houseintherear