Some unloved cans of Tesco's budget bitter, stranded in Victoria station. There's a lot of emotions there (mainly along the lines of, seriously, Tesco do a value bitter? And also, that alcohol percentage, who is their target market for this?)

Podium at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC.

 

Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.

tnsr.org/2022/10/fixing-the-current-system-or-moving-towa...

 

Fixing the Current System or Moving Toward a Value-Based Globalization

Mathew Burrows, Robert A. Manning, Aaron L. Friedberg

 

In this issue’s correspondence section, Mathew Burrows and Robert Manning respond to Aaron Friedberg’s article on the future of globalization, published in Vol 5, Iss 1 of TNSR. Friedberg, in turn, offers his own rebuttal.

 

Taking Exception: The Problems with a “Partial Liberal” Order

Mathew Burrows and Robert A. Manning

 

Aaron Friedberg recently published an important, thought-provoking article in these pages that examines the evolution of the international economy over the last two centuries and possible scenarios for how the current era of globalization may fail or be reconstructed.¹ We commend the analysis of past phases of globalization but take issue with the likelihood and desirability of his proposed “value-based” free world trade bloc, which he calls “Globalization 2.5.” Friedberg dismisses the possibility of repairing and updating the current international system to reflect the redistribution of wealth and power from West to East and North to South. While he discusses a region-centric global economic order, his preferred outcome is a U.S.-led “partial liberal” order. However, such a framework would institutionalize a fragmented, conflict-prone world based more on power and less on rules.

 

The notion of a “democracies only” world order reflects the logic of the Biden administration’s “democracy vs. autocracy” strategy, but with respect to it fashioning a stable and prosperous world, it is a dubious proposition. For starters, China is the world’s largest trading power (its total export-imports were $4.2 trillion in 2021), the leading trade partner of U.S. allies and partners in Europe and Asia, and a major exporter of capital.² Moreover, the neutral response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by most of the world — including democracies such as India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey — shows that these countries are more motivated by interests than by democratic values. Beyond fashioning legal and institutional frameworks for global trade and investment to operate in, the administration’s requirement now is to make sure that such trade and investment favor U.S. interests. The Biden administration, for example, wants to prevent any new trade regimes from hurting the middle class, even though there are inevitably going to be some losers when openings in trade are made.

 

The United States could do better by closing the skills-job opening gap and helping the American middle class compete by providing improved retraining and more life-long learning opportunities, as well as a stronger social safety net, including portable healthcare, universal daycare, and more generous unemployment insurance linked to retraining. Of course, trade politics include a significant amount of market intervention and managed trade — imposing quotas and voluntary export restraints, or putting in place tariffs when another’s trade practices are deemed to be unfair or in order to protect strategic industries — and demonstrate clear results from such measures.³ Yet, there seems to be an increasing temptation among foreign policy strategists to believe that China will either acquiesce to perpetual U.S. primacy or that it can simply be isolated from U.S.-led political and economic structures. This implies that the United States and its allies can redesign the world to please their preferences for democratic liberalism without regard for other countries. But when, over the past several centuries, has there been a stable world order absent the inclusion or a considered balance of the major economic and military powers, particularly China and Russia?

 

Technology, Economics, and Politics

 

To our minds, the proposal for a “partial liberal trading system,” is inconsistent with Friedberg’s elegant summary analysis of how periods of globalization over the past 200 years have come about and operated: namely that economics, in terms of market trends and other forces such as technology, has historically been the driver of globalization. Politics, on the other hand, may have established a favorable framework for globalization, but it has been unable to orchestrate it fully.

 

We take the point in Robert Gilpin’s prescient assessment, cited by Friedberg, regarding the reciprocal relationship between politics and economics, wherein economics redistributes wealth and power, which leads to political changes and reordered politico-economic relationships. But this model overstates the role of politics and underestimates the role of technology. Politics does create the framework in which economics operates, but within that framework — the enabling security structures and sets of rules and regulations — economics is driven by its own imperatives that redistribute wealth and power. In Britain in the 19th century and the United States in the 20th century, economic expansion led to the development of external markets for Western exports and imports of commodities and other essential goods. These economic exchanges helped America’s trading partners — including China — to grow and compete. Some forecasts anticipate that China will outgrow the United States as measured in market exchange terms by the early 2030s.⁴ China’s stunning ascendency since 1978 is testimony to how economic growth upsets power balances,⁵ in this case triggering a U.S. backlash and a corresponding shift of U.S. views of China that Friedberg ably chronicles.

 

Economics has also driven calls in the United States and, to a degree, other Western countries, for changing how globalization operates in order to better protect their interests. In a sense, having pressed liberalization on everyone else and then lost the agency to run the global economy after World War II, Washington wants to re-work who’s in and who’s out to ensure continued hegemony. Friedberg’s solution to the problems with the current trading system would be a “world in which the advanced industrial democracies of Europe, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere band together to form a free trade area and perhaps a full economic bloc.” This is wishful thinking. Such an alternative to the current global economy is unrealistic and would be disruptive, ultimately undermining U.S. and Western prosperity and potentially increasing the risk of great-power conflict — a risk that is already unacceptably high.

 

The historical cases that Friedberg supplies illustrate the importance of economics and technology over politics. This is strengthened if one considers the first cycle of economic globalization that took place more than two millennia ago under the Han dynasty, a case that Friedberg omitted: the Silk Road, which connected Asia and the Middle East to Europe with variations (e.g., Venice’s maritime empire) until roughly 1500.⁶ There were minimal rules in this system, and it was driven mainly by power, ambition, and the desire for profit. Friedberg’s “Globalization 1.0,” (1815–1914), facilitated as much by rapid technological change (the telegraph, railroads, steam engines) as by a post-Napoleonic political framework, was largely based on Britain’s and other Western countries’ comparative advantage and thirst for the raw materials that were provided by Europe’s colonies in Africa, Asia, Caribbean, and other regions. It was the politics of nationalism and anti-colonialism more than redistributed wealth that produced World War I, thus ending that period of globalization.

 

The post-World War II Bretton Woods system was a wildly successful partial-liberal order centered in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. The crafters of this system were intent on learning from the mistakes of hyper-nationalism and protectionism that characterized the inter-war period. The system had a rules-based architecture that was open and mutually beneficial and that worked to no small degree because of relatively open U.S. markets and a hegemonic enforcer that underpinned the system. The self-imposed separation by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries helped set its limits. As John Ruggie argues (which Friedberg cites), one reason for the post-Cold War resilience of the Bretton Woods system, current problems notwithstanding, is that even absent a hegemon, if there is a sense of common purpose and shared interests, a multilateral structure can still function.⁷ Bretton Woods partners felt they were receiving enough mutual benefit to sustain the system, regardless of whether a hegemon was involved. But as Europe and Japan rebuilt and became industrial competitors by the 1980s, the generosity of America’s relatively open markets became increasingly problematic for Americans who saw those whom they had defeated gaining economically on the United States. Washington struck back, as showcased in the 1980s U.S.-Japanese trade wars in which Japanese auto companies were pressured into investing their profits in building new factories in America.

 

As globalization took off at the end of the Cold War, the Bretton Woods trade and financial system, fueled by the IT revolution and global supply chains, expanded exponentially to former Warsaw Pact nations and to emerging economies like Brazil, India, and East Asia writ large, as well as China and even Russia itself. The result was a new global middle class, but also new vulnerabilities that manifested in financial crises in Latin America (most pronounced in the 1980s but episodic and ongoing in Argentina and several other countries), the 1998 Asian financial crisis, and eventually the meltdown of the whole system in the 2008 Western financial crisis.⁸ All of this affirms Gilpin’s point about trade redistributing wealth and, in turn, leading to changes in political fortunes, such as America’s relative decline. While it is still a work in progress, we have seen some change in the character and scope of globalization. Capital controls are one such shift, as well as a proliferation of regional and extra-regional trade arrangements. A polycentric world also faces unprecedented uncertainty about the future of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) role as the arbiter of global trade, as the failure of the Doha Round of global trade liberalization underscored.⁹

 

At present, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and rapid digitization have shown that economics tends to race ahead of governance. This was illustrated by China’s unprecedented economic success in recent decades, outgrowing the political framework of the trading system, going from $150 billion in GDP in 1978 to $18 trillion in 2021 with an average 10 percent annual growth from 1978 to 2021.¹⁰ China’s gaming of the system led to a shattering of U.S. myths that economic reform leads to wider liberalization and a realization that China’s state-centric model was a different type of capitalism, something that President Donald Trump called out.¹¹

 

Repairing the Current System

 

Instead of proposing an improbable strategy for a return to a partial globalization centered on the “free world,” Friedberg may have done better to show that the current, flawed system of globalization can be repaired. This would preserve, if not boost, current benefits for the United States and the rest of the world. In Friedberg’s account of the breakdown of “Globalization 2.0,” China is largely at fault. Nobody denies that China has never fulfilled the promises it made to liberalize its internal market at the time of its 2001 accession to the WTO. Beijing is also, as Friedberg charges, engaged in rampant intellectual theft to help it become a tech giant, but this is not the most important factor in its rapid technological ascent. Missing in Friedberg’s analysis are U.S. causes for America’s disenchantment with globalization. As Adam Posen has argued in a recent Foreign Affairs article, the “United States has, on balance, been withdrawing from the international economy for the past two decades.”¹² The jobs lost to Chinese competition have, in fact, been relatively small — namely, two million jobs lost between 2000 and 2015 out of a workforce of 150 million, or roughly 130,000 workers a year.¹³

 

So why the public backlash against globalization and China? Part of the reason, Posen argues, concerns the “fetishization of manufacturing jobs.” The United States has been steadily losing manufacturing jobs, with many of the losses coming from electorally important states, giving the issue more prominence. But why shift all the blame onto China? While Beijing bears much of the blame, the United States has been woefully remiss in helping redundant workers find new employment through retraining. Policies encouraging U.S. offshore investment in global supply chains until very recently also contributed to the problem. According to a 2021 study by the American Enterprise Institute, U.S. “federal spending on worker training has fallen over the past few decades as a share of GDP.”¹⁴ U.S. states have traditionally played an important role in trade adjustment, but in the aggregate, there has also been a decline in trade funding assistance since the 1980s. Other advanced economies do much better in terms of funding both social safety nets and skills training: The United States is second to last in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s ranking of countries that provide public spending to support job readiness and matching skills to jobs.¹⁵ Fashioning a more robust social safety net and better equipping the workforce with the skills needed to advance in a rapidly changing 21st-century workplace might restore trust in freer trade.

 

It is not only on trade that the United States has turned against the rest of the world. Anti-immigrant feeling has also exploded, although there is little evidence that unskilled immigrants are going to take away highly paid jobs.¹⁶ In fact, the U.S. economy can’t run without immigrants. The turn inward and opposition to globalization is as much cultural and psychological as it is based on rational interests. Disregarding history and the distributive effects of trade, Americans always tended to assume that their country would be an outright winner of globalization.

 

European countries have been much less enamored with globalization, fearing that their industries would lose out. As Friedberg points out, globalization was sold in the mid-1990s by President Bill Clinton as the motor for achieving the “end of history.” But there was little understanding of how globalization leads to more — not less — strategic competition. One reason for this may be that America’s rise to become one of the great economic powers by the end of the 19th century came about because of Britain’s embrace of free trade and its support for globalization. A better appreciation at the outset of the challenges of economic competition might have pushed the United States toward a Sputnik-like “self-improvement” program, rendering it better prepared for the inevitable competition from China and other emerging markets.

 

Instead of throwing the globalization baby out with the bath water, America can still try to repair the flaws in globalization’s workings. What’s wrong with putting pressure on China by rounding up allies to force Beijing to mend its ways on IP theft and lack of market access or risk losing global markets? China’s growth remains dependent on trade, and China is the biggest trading partner of many U.S. allies.

 

Sacrificing Globalization 2.0 and trying to build a partial replacement anchored in the “free world” carries a number of risks. For starters, it is not a given that the United States can harmonize its views on trade and regulation with those of the European Union, which has been integrating its trade with Asia and Latin America. Globalization 2.0 has also been the vehicle for many developing countries to enrich themselves, reduce poverty, and build middle classes, which, over time, can bolster the chances of democratization and liberal market reforms. A partial liberal trade system that leaves out a good part of the world would increase the chances of conflict and make authoritarianism more likely, leaving the developing world more dependent on China.

 

In all of this, there needs to be a better understanding of the limits of America’s power to impose its will. It may have worked for Dean Acheson, but that time is long past. It is U.S. hubris and concern over America’s unreliability that has prompted Europe and much of Asia to hedge against the United States. Look at E.U. trade and investment deals with Japan, China, and other Asian and Latin American states,¹⁷ and consider Asia, with its new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership accord,¹⁸ which does not include America. Though Friedberg minimizes the effort required to achieve consensus, he is right about the importance of mobilizing democracies and other like-minded states to forge a common position on trade issues, but that should not be an end in itself. Precisely because of the limits of U.S. agency, working with allies and partners makes sense in order to maximize America’s leverage to shape global rules and norms, but it should not be a substitute for global rules.

 

With only 18 percent of the world economy, is it not possible that China would alter its policies to sustain access to global markets,¹⁹ particularly now, as it faces unprecedented challenges due to a state-centric, investment-driven economic model that no longer works?²⁰ The same Chinese Communist Party of the Great Leap Forward disaster and the maniacal cultural revolution self-corrected by enacting Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. It is worth exhausting diplomacy to test this idea before concluding that there is no difference between China’s grandiose ambitions and what it is willing to accept. That’s where coordination among democracies and the like-minded can build leverage to test the proposition. Friedberg is too quick to eliminate any role for the United States and its partners working together to update global trade and tech rules, as well as the WTO. At present, however, the mutual demonization between China and the United States, and America’s assumption that China can’t change, render such an effort difficult.

 

Domestic Obstacles to a Value-Based Globalization

 

Friedberg also ignores the growing domestic obstacles when he calls for a return to a partial, value-based globalization. President Joe Biden may have eased Trump-era steel and aluminum sanctions against European allies, but he angered those allies with his Buy American rule, using federal procurement to support American manufacturing. Biden also dismayed America’s United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement partners, when he proposed electric car subsidies for unionized U.S. carmakers,²¹ although it’s unclear how the subsidies will be implemented in the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act. The episode has left a bad taste in the mouths of America’s closest trade partners, such as South Korea and Japan, who have been encouraged to build auto factories in the United States, and it reinforces the impression that the United States is becoming more protectionist, even with its allies.

 

Moreover, the Biden administration is so divided it is hard for it to make any move on trade. A recent Politico article describes the difficulty plaguing administration efforts to develop a trade strategy with Asian countries, despite the eagerness of America’s Asian allies and partners for the United States to take a more active role in trade.²² In one corner of the three-way administration division are the trade expansionists who want to tie Asian nations closer to the United States with trade deals. Then there’s the more labor-friendly faction, which wants to use tariffs and quotas to protect U.S. workers. The third camp worries that scrapping with China economically could undermine administration priorities to ease inflation and decrease supply chain bottlenecks. Even smaller trade deal ideas, such as a digital trade agreement, have met with opposition. A U.S. Trade Representative plan to launch a trade case against China’s use of industrial subsidies has also been dropped.

 

Then there’s Congress, which is increasingly anti-trade. Trumpist Republicans and progressive Democrats oppose any effort to resurrect the Trans-Pacific Partnership and would block America’s entry into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Both parties are fighting the last war, blaming foreign trade as the main cause of the decline of union workers and the loss of manufacturing jobs, when technological change is a major driver of job gains and losses. The problem is more the mismatch of skills to labor, one reason why the United States has some 10 million unfilled jobs.²³

 

Administration paralysis in moving forward with any trade initiative combined with growing protectionism make it hard to envisage a “free world” free trade agreement being workable. While such an accord would seem to be in line with the administration’s anti-China and pro-democracy focus and popular with the growing anti-China congressional consensus, it would mean crafting a trade agreement that is larger than any of the administration’s smaller initiatives. Friedberg has rightly focused on the problems that China poses to the functioning of the world trading system. Yet, the current political disorder at home is as much the issue when it comes to remaking the global trading system. The fundamental problem with Friedberg’s advocacy for a free world trading system is that we cannot just wipe the slate clean and start anew.

 

Conclusion

 

There is much uncertainty about the future of the global trading system, and Friedberg nicely sketches possible alternative futures. The WTO’s role will almost certainly be diminished. There may be sector-specific global trade liberalization to come, but most likely no future global trade rounds. Trade liberalization has become more region-centric and trans-region centric, such as is the case with the U.S.-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.²⁴ Nonetheless, because of its near universal membership (it covers 96 percent of global trade), and its role as the only over-arching dispute settlement mechanism, the WTO remains critical to maintaining a rules-based trade regime, although both aspects of the organization are in need of major reform if the WTO is to remain relevant.²⁵

 

Recent trends of regional trade clusters and the reorganization of supply chains suggest that the most probable scenario is one in which the WTO and U.N. standard-setting bodies create a loose global umbrella over regional accords. But continued trade and financial fragmentation cannot be dismissed. Protectionism — managed trade in key sectors like steel and aluminum — is on the rise. For the very reason that Friedberg highlights via Gilpin — that economics alters politics — we cannot rule out that today’s authoritarians could become tomorrow’s market-oriented democracies, as internal forces, such as growing middle classes, push for more political participation and liberalization over time.

 

Apart from the inertia of U.S. trade policy, market forces pose a strong obstacle to any effort to reorder trade along ideological lines that cuts out the world’s largest market and trading power. We are already seeing hints of a prospective mirror-image response to “democracies only” efforts in the February joint statement from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, promising closer affiliation between Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.²⁶ Similarly, Beijing has proposed a new Global Security Initiative.²⁷

 

There is a complex network of trade and investment with China. U.S. corn and wheat farmers are attracted to the Chinese market, and shale producers welcome selling to the Chinese liquefied natural gas market. Boeing enjoys the Chinese commercial airline market, and Qualcomm and others like selling low-end chips for Chinese cellphones. None of this necessarily poses national security risks. A circumscribed, partial liberal trade order would defy market forces that benefit American businesses and consumers.

 

Strategic competition is leading to decoupling by both the United States and China where national security interests are deemed at risk, particularly in the tech sector. Fixing a global system that economics has overtaken, however problematic, still seems the most sensible strategy. Finally, with regard to the broader systemic consequences, it is worth recalling a recent cautionary note from Henry Kissinger: “Differences in ideology should not be the main issue of confrontation, unless we are prepared to make regime change the principal goal of our policy.”²⁸

   

Dr. Mathew Burrows serves as director of the Stimson Center’s Strategic Foresight Hub and is a distinguished fellow in the Reimagining Grand Strategy program and Red Cell project at the Stimson Center. He retired in 2013 from a 28-year career at the CIA, serving the last 10 years as counselor at the National Intelligence Council.

 

Robert A. Manning is a distinguished fellow in the Reimagining Grand Strategy program and the Red Cell project at the Stimson Center. He was a senior counselor to the undersecretary of state for global affairs from 2001 to 2004, a member of the U.S. Department of State policy planning staff from 2004 to 2008, and a member of the National Intelligence Council strategic futures group from 2008 to 2012. Follow him on Twitter @Rmanning4.

News Release

For immediate distribution

 

JAKARTA WELCOMES ITS FIRST TUNE HOTEL

Value branded hotel chain continues its expansion in Indonesia

  

Jakarta, 3 September 2012 – Tune Hotels, the global branded value hotel chain, continues to expand in Indonesia with the opening of its latest hotel in Pasar Baru, Jakarta. Tune Hotel Pasar Baru would represent the global brand’s third property in Indonesia, (following Tune Hotel Kuta and Legian in Bali) and the first hotel in central Jakarta, offering world-class accommodation at extremely affordable rates, providing the essentials for a good night’s sleep. Tune Hotel Pasar Baru has 168 rooms in total, 125 Doubles, 42 Twin-sharing and a special needs room. The opening of Tune Hotel Pasar Baru was attended by popular Indonesian celebrities Nicholas Saputra and Izabel Jahja.

 

The expansion of the Tune Hotel brand in Indonesia is spurred by the country’s strong economy, rising number of tourists and favorable business environment. Jakarta is one of the largest cities in the world and ranked third after Bali and Sulawesi recording the highest hotel room occupancy in Indonesia according to the Statistics Indonesia of the Republic Indonesia. Pasar Baru is one of Jakarta’s most popular tourist destination and its central location is also ideal for business activities. Known for its shopping experience, visitors can “go back in time” to take in the beauty of its Dutch influenced colonial and Chinese architecture of its buildings as one strolls along the coble stone streets.

 

According to Mark Lankester, Group CEO of Tune Hotels, “Jakarta represents a gateway for leisure travellers more often as a stop-over before continuing their journey to other popular destinations such as Bali, Medan, Yogyakarta and Surabaya. Nevertheless Jakarta also serves as a central business destination drawing frequent business travellers from the South East Asian region and domestically within Indonesia as well. Hence, the opening of Tune Hotel Pasar Baru would cater to the needs of leisure and business travellers looking for convenient, comfortable and value-for-money accommodation. “

 

Lankester added that more expansion plans are on the way for the Tune Hotel brand in Indonesia which includes Pekan Baru, Makassar, Solo, Palembang and Surabaya. The vast country of sprawling archipelago has much to offer; from natural beauty, historical heritage to cultural diversity. Moreover, statistics from the Travel and Tourism Competitive Index (TTCI) in 2011 ranks Indonesia as the thirteenth most attractive destination in the Asia-Pacific to commence travel and tourism business operations.

 

Other Tune Hotel properties in Indonesia are located in Kuta and Legian, Bali which have been a favourite among visitors to Bali. The hotels’ popularity was recognized when it was named among the Top 20 Indonesia Innovative Brands of 2011 by Indonesia’s leading marketing industry magazine, MIX. It was Tune Hotels' innovativeness to its ability to serve the practical needs of tourists by giving them the best value that garnered the attention and illustrated by Legian and Kuta hotels being ranked #3 and #7 Best Value Hotels in Bali on TripAdvisor. Tune Hotels was selected along with other global leading brands to be named on the list and the only Malaysian-originated brand.

 

Red Planet Hotels owns and operates the Tune Hotel Pasar Baru in close association with Tune Hotel and its Chief Executive Officer, Tim Hansing, said that this hotel was the first of many more to come in Indonesia from Red Planet as the Tune brand expands across the country.

 

“This is the first hotel of eight more we have under construction in Indonesia and we will have some exciting announcements about more sites we are in the midst of acquiring. We are making some significant investments in Indonesia in the budget hotel sector as we have full confidence in the potential of Indonesia and the Indonesian travel sector to grow this market” said Hansing.

 

Tune Hotels currently has eleven hotels in Malaysia, four in LondonUnited Kingdom, four in The Philippines and two in Thailand. Hotels in Malaysia are located in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, KLIA-LCCT Airport, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Johor Bahru, Kota Damansara, Bintulu, Kota Bharu, Kulim and Ipoh.

 

Hotels in Asia includes Hat Yai and Pattaya in Thailand; Angeles City, Cebu City, Ermita and Makati, Manila in The Philippines; Kuta and Legian in Bali and Pasar Baru, Jakarta in Indonesia; Westminster, Liverpool Street, Paddington and Kings Cross in London, UK. Tune Hotels has successfully pioneered a branded value hotel brand with the concept of pay-as-you-use that has become hugely popular amongst travelers from across the world. Under the concept, guests only pay for room rates with the option of adding on other amenities like towels & toiletries, air-conditioning, in-room Wifi and satellite TV service at selected hotels.

Calling on guests to stay connected with Tune Hotels via the social media networks Facebook and Twitter, Mark Lankester, says “More Tune Hotels are scheduled for opening in Asean, the UK, India and Australia, that will give our guests even more options for travel destinations. We encourage guests to stay tuned for Tune Hotels’ latest openings and promotions via Facebook and Twitter.”

 

Tune Hotels is part of Tune Group, a lifestyle business conglomerate co-founded by Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Dato’ Kamarudin Meranun, who are the Group CEO and Deputy Group CEO respectively of Asia’s largest low cost carrier AirAsia.

 

For real-time updates and promotion alerts, guests can stay connected with Tune Hotels via Facebook at www.facebook.com/tunehotels or www.facebook.com/TunehotelsInd and on Twitter via www.twitter.com/tunehotels or www.twitter.com/TuneHotelsID

 

For booking and further information, visit www.tunehotels.com.

 

- END –

 

About Tune Hotels

 

Tune Hotels is part of the lifestyle business conglomerate Tune Group that was founded by Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Dato’ Kamarudin Meranun. Tune Group was established in 2007 with the aim of breaking down affordability barriers in various aspects of daily life – via Tune Hotels, Tune Talk and Tune Money. Tune Group seeks to innovate and revolutionise the way services are made available and has employed efficient web-based technologies to reach and engage its customers, presenting a unique lifestyle offering ranging from value hotel stays, personal finance solutions and affordable prepaid mobile services. Tune Group of Companies are Tune Air, Tune Hotels, Tune Money, Tune Talk, Tune Box, Tune Studios, Tune Tones, Team Lotus, ASEAN Basketball League, Caterham Group, Queens Park Rangers Football Club (QPR) and Kuala Lumpur Education City (owner of Epsom College in Malaysia).

 

Since Tune Hotels was first launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2007, over 3 million guests have stayed in its properties spread across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and the United Kingdom. It now has 25 hotels available for bookings located in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, KLIA-LCCT Airport, Penang, Johor Bahru, Kota Damansara, Bintulu, Kota Bharu and Kulim in Malaysia; Kuta and Legian in Bali and Jakarta in Indonesia; Westminister, Liverpool Street, Paddington and Kings Cross in London in the United Kingdom; Angeles City, Cebu City, Ermita and Makati in Manila, The Philippines; Hatyai and Pattaya in Thailand.

 

All Tune Hotel hotels feature space-efficient, streamlined rooms focusing on high-quality basics: 5-star bed, powerful hot showers and energy-saving fans. The strategically located hotels provide housekeeping services, electronic keycard access into rooms, CCTV surveillance, and prohibits access into the main lobby without a keycard past midnight. Through Tune Hotels’ ‘Less Waste, More Earth’ pay-as-you-use system of add-ons wi-fi, TV, laundered towels and other energy-consuming facilities and amenities, Tune Hotels aims to help guests conserve both their funds as well as the earth’s resources.

 

Photos are available from www.flickr.com/tunehotels.

 

Media contacts:

Amanda Chong

Senior Marketing Manager – Tune Hotels

HP: +60 12 284 0004

DL: +60 3 7962 5711

Fax: +60 3 7955 5899

Email: amanda.chong@tunehotels.com

  

Soldiers from the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) support an Army Full Honors Wreath-Laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in recognition of the U.S. Army’s Birthday, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., June 14, 2023. For 248 years, U.S. Army Soldiers have been transforming obstacles into possibilities that have helped build our nation and defend American values. We honor the brave men and women who have answered the call to serve and make a difference by providing humanitarian aid, disaster relief and defending freedom at home and abroad. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery / released)

The black used on the Moo template is CMYK value (0,0,0,100) which is more of a charcoal black. The browser sometimes displays this as a true black (100,100,100,100)

 

When using a custom logo graphic perhaps using transparency is the best option.

Moo cards corrected it for me!

 

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Photo taken by Michael Kappel of Moo Minicard Business cards

 

View the high resolution Image on my picture website

Pictures.MichaelKappel.com

 

Follow Me on Tumblr.com Photo Blog

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Young man in wetsuit looks out at surf with board at his feet (view of lower body).

I just could not walk on by, I had to stand and stare before making the exposure.

On 19-22 November 2019, our Top 10 Innovators took part in a bootcamp where they received skills development trainings relevant to their proposed solutions to prevent #teenagepregnancy.

 

This bootcamp aimed to give guidance and mentorship to our innovators as they polish their business ideas for the upcoming pitch contest. Our Innovators toured C&H Garments and Positivo BGH at the Special Economic Zone to get first hand insight on business modeling.

 

Our top 10 #Innovators practiced pitching different aspects of their solutions, including cost structure, value proposition, revenue streams & customer relationship, among others. This training was facilitated by @DOTRwanda.

#iAccelerator2

  

The son - the future defender.

 

This is part of photo-set "

Family values".

______________________________

Family: Taho - father - Soom Heliot

Misteria - mother - Soom Nephelin

Aminael - daughter - Soom Kivi

Roland - son - Soom Trond

Value Education Workshop at Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar District of West Bengal in April 2017

 

Early plans

 

The idea of an east to west waterway link across southern England was first mentioned in Elizabethan times, between 1558 and 1603,[2] to take advantage of the proximity of the rivers Avon and Thames, only 3 miles (4.8 km) apart at their closest. Later, around 1626, Henry Briggs made a survey of the two rivers and noted that the land between them was level and easy to dig. He proposed a canal to connect them, but following Briggs' death in 1630 the plan was dropped. After the English Civil War four bills were presented to parliament, but all failed after opposition from gentry, farmers and traders worried about cheaper water transport reducing the value of fees on turnpike roads they controlled, and cheaper produce from Wales undercutting locally produced food.[2] The main alternative to road transport for the carriage of goods between Bristol and London was a hazardous sea route through the English Channel. The small coastal sailing ships of the day were often damaged by Atlantic storms, and risked being attacked by warships of the French navy and privateers during a succession of conflicts with France.[3]

 

Plans for a waterway were shelved until the early 18th century. In 1723 the Kennet Navigation through Reading opened. The Avon navigation from Bristol to Bath was opened in 1727; the first cargo of "Deal boards, Pig-Lead and Meal" reached Bath in December.[4] The two navigations were built to meet local needs independently of one another, but both under the supervision of surveyor and engineer John Hore. In 1788 the so-called "Western Canal" was proposed to improve trade and communication links to towns such as Hungerford, Marlborough, Wiltshire, Calne, Chippenham and Melksham. The following year the engineers Barns, Simcock and Weston submitted a proposed route for this canal, although there were doubts about the adequacy of the water supply. The name was changed from Western Canal to Kennet and Avon Canal to avoid confusion with the Grand Western Canal, which was being proposed at the same time.[5]

 

[edit] Construction

     

Surveyor, John Rennie: portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn, 1810

In 1793 a further survey was conducted by John Rennie, and the route of the canal was altered to take a more southerly course through Great Bedwyn, Devizes, Trowbridge and Newbury. The proposed route was accepted by the Kennet and Avon Canal Company, chaired by Charles Dundas, and the company started to take subscriptions from prospective shareholders. In July 1793 Rennie suggested further alterations to the route, including the construction of a tunnel in the Savernake Forest.[5] On 17 April 1794 the Kennet and Avon Canal Act received the Royal Assent and construction began. The Newbury to Hungerford section was completed in 1798, and was extended to Great Bedwyn in 1799. The section from Bath to Foxhangers was finished in 1804, and the two were linked by an iron railway until the completion of Devizes Locks in 1810.[5]

 

The canal opened in 1810 after 16 years of construction. Major structures included the Dundas and Avoncliff aqueducts, the Bruce Tunnel under Savernake Forest, and the pumping stations at Claverton and Crofton, needed to overcome water supply problems. The final engineering task was the completion of the Caen Hill Locks at Devizes.[6]

 

[edit] Operation

 

In 1801, trade along the canal commenced, even though goods had to be unloaded at Foxhangers at the bottom of what is now Caen Hill Locks, transported up the hill by a horse-drawn railway, and reloaded into barges at the top. When the flight of locks finally opened in 1810, allowing the same vessel to navigate the entire canal, the rate of carriage per ton from London to Bath was £2 9s 6d. This compared well with carriage by road, which cost £6 3s to £7 per ton, and therefore trade on the canal flourished. In 1812, the Kennet and Avon Canal Company bought the Kennet Navigation, which stretched from Newbury to the junction with the Thames at Kennet Mouth, near Reading. The purchase from Frederick Page cost £100,000, of which £70,000 was paid in cash with the balance paid back over a period of time. The purchase was authorised by the Kennet Navigation Act of June 1813, which enabled the company to raise the funds through the sale of 5,500 shares at £24 each. At the same time work was undertaken to improve the Avon Navigation, from Bristol to Bath, with the Kennet and Avon Canal Company purchasing a majority shareholding in the Avon Navigation in 1816.[7]

 

By 1818, seventy 60-ton barges were working on the canal, the majority of the tonnage being accounted for by coal and stone travelling via the Somerset Coal Canal.[8] The journey from Bath to Newbury took an average of three and a half days. By 1832, 300,000 tons of freight was being carried each year and, between 1825 and 1834, the company had an annual revenue of around £45,000.[5]

 

[edit] Decline

 

The opening of the Great Western Railway in 1841 removed much of the canal's traffic, even though the canal company lowered tariffs.[9] In 1852 the railway company took over the canal's operation, levying high tolls at every toll point and reducing the amount spent on maintenance. Ice-breaking was stopped before the winter of 1857, and traders were further encouraged by preferential tolls to use the railway rather than the canal. In 1861 a new order prohibited any traffic on the canal at night, and, in 1865, boats were forced to pass through locks in pairs to reduce water loss. By 1868 the annual tonnage had fallen from 360,610 in 1848 to 210,567. In the 1870s water abstraction from the canal near Fobney Lock followed the regulations introduced in the Reading Local Board Waterworks, Sewerage, Drainage and Improvements Act of 1870, and contributed to the silting up of locks and stretches of the canal. Several wharves and stretches of towpath were closed. In 1877 the canal recorded a deficit of £1,920 and never subsequently made any profit.[10]

 

The Somerset Coal Canal and Wilts and Berks Canal, which each supplied some of the trade from the Somerset coalfield to the Kennet and Avon,[11] closed in 1904 and 1906 respectively. In 1926, following a loss of £18,041 the previous year,[12] the Great Western Railway sought to close the canal by obtaining a Ministry of Transport Order, but the move was resisted and the company charged with improving its maintenance of the canal.[9] Cargo trade continued to decline, but a few pleasure boats started to use the canal.[13]

     

A Second World War pillbox near Kintbury

During the Second World War a large number of concrete bunkers known as pillboxes were built as part of the GHQ Line to defend against an expected German invasion, many of which are still visible along the banks of the canal.[14] They were generally built close to road and rail bridges, which would have formed important crossing points for enemy troops and vehicles.[15][16] After the war the Transport Act of 1947 meant that control of the canal passed to the British Transport Commission, but by the 1950s large sections of the canal had been closed because of poor lock maintenance following a breach in the bank west of the Avoncliff Aqueduct.[5] The last through passage was made in 1951 by nb Queen (Nicholson Guide 7 p59).

 

value on calculator. You are allowed to use this image on your website. If you do, please link back to my site as the source: creditscoregeek.com/

 

Example: Photo by CreditScoreGeek

 

Thank you!

Mike Cohen

Value Education Workshop at Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar District of West Bengal in April 2017

Wilmington, North Carolina

Wilmington Martial Arts and Karate

  

Karate for Kids Testimonial and Review

 

When my eight-year-old son first asked me if I would let him take Karate for Kids, I was a little worried. Karate seems so dangerous and I was concerned that my boy would end up injured. After talking with my husband, we agreed to give the program a chance and now we are so glad that we did.

 

First of all, I would like to state that Master Babin is wonderful with the children. While I was apprehensive that the Karate class would be all about fighting, I was relieved to learn that the focus was more on self-defense and moral values. Now my son is healthier than ever, doing an activity that he truly loves.

 

I would encourage every parent out there looking for a fun exercise-based activity for his or her child to participate in their Karate for Kids program a chance. My son is constantly talking about what he learned in his past karate lessons and practicing his blocks and punches in the living room. He is even playing his video games less.

 

After my initial reservations, I now cannot imagine my son participating in any other karate program. Consider this my highest recommendation.

David S

 

Reviews on Karate for Kids

 

When my son started karate instruction with Karate for Kids, he was timid, had few friends and had trouble paying attention in school. I didn't agree with the doctor who tried to tell me he had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and that I should put him on medication to control it. To me, my son just needed some loving guidance, not to be medicated.

 

That is when I asked my good friend about her children's experiences with the local martial arts Instructor. Like my son, her children did not have a father figure in their lives and suffered greatly as the result. When they were approaching their teenage years, she decided to enroll them in karate at Karate For Kids Within a matter of weeks, I saw her pre-teen son and daughter become more confident, focused and goal-oriented and knew I wanted the same for my child.

 

After his very first lesson, my son, then aged nine, was already a changed child. He overflowed with enthusiasm as he explained how the karate for kids program pushed him to reach goals, but was "really nice" about it. To this mom, that means that my son finally got the caring, personal instruction that he deserves.

Thank you for such a fantastic Karate For Kids Program

Samantha W

  

Testimonial and Review on Martial Arts For Men

 

I am a forty-eight year old man and, until about four months ago, I had really let myself go. Between work-related stress and the other pressures of my day-to-day existence, I made little time for exercise and gave almost no thought to a healthy diet. In short, I was a mess.

 

One day, a colleague at my office took me aside and recommended that I sign up for the martial arts program offered locally. He had recently signed up for a class and loved it. After some convincing, I agreed to accompany him to his next class.

 

Fast-forward to today and I now love my martial arts training. Martial Arts for men workouts feels less like training and more like fun. I have been losing weight and now have a new energy when facing the daily grind. I have gone from one class a week to two, and am thinking of adding a third.

 

If you are looking for a fun way to get in shape, I would advise you to come on down our Martial Arts for Men Academy. You will not regret it.

Getting younger…

Lisa F

  

Testimonial and Review on Martial Arts For Women

 

I never would have thought that taking up martial arts, would change me so much as a person and in so many ways. I still use every occasion to thank my friends, for recommending me the Martial Art courses for women taught by a martial arts school that teaches quality skill sets for women

 

I used to be a very shy person, and had become quite fearful after having my purse stolen one evening. Now, that is no longer the case. Since participating in the martial arts courses, I have felt more empowered than ever. I enjoyed the friendly and encouraging atmosphere right from the start, and did not feel ashamed of my initial clumsiness.

 

Now, I can actually impress my friends with some of the moves I learned. Also, I am fully aware that martial arts represent a life style just as much as anything else. My Instructor simply amazed all of us throughout the entire program, with his dedication and willingness to teach us. In fact, we could hardly wait for the next session.

 

I truly recommend anyone to make the same change I made in my life. Looking back, I really cannot see my weekly schedule without my martial arts training sessions.

C McCrae

 

Martial Arts For Women in Wilmington, North Carolina

Taking a martial arts class was not something I had given much consideration prior to turning 30. Wanting to preserve my strength and flexibility for years to come finally enticed me to take the plunge. The immediate results were stunning and I found myself feeling more energetic and confident in just a few sessions.

 

Not only are his martial arts skills top-notch, but I find his enthusiasm and enjoyment of the sport to be infectious. Considering that this entire venture was foreign to me, I felt right at home during my very first class. In addition to training in martial arts my instructor has a great deal of patience and warmth, the other karate students in the session were just as receptive to me. They really know how to make new members feel welcome.

 

Learning the forms and methods involved in martial arts is a great experience, but what makes these classes truly exceptional is that we learn how to incorporate the philosophy and principals behind this art form into our everyday lives. I look forward to my sessions with my instructor, and find his classes to be a great way to invest in myself, while having some fun at the same time. It is more than just kicking and punching it’s a well rounded martial arts program.

With Great Thanks,

Jackie W

 

 

I found all this at Value Village, all told for $72 No sets are complete, all are missing at least 1 or two minifigs, smaller items in the set, and a couple cases had some glue on them, most notable the TIE advanced. Still one heck of a deal.

dug'em up from the archives

Collection: Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library

 

Repository: Susan H. Douglas Political Americana Collection, #2214 Rare & Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Cornell University

 

Title: McKinley Campaign Buttons, ca. 1900

 

Political Party: Republican

 

Election Year: 1900

 

Date Made: ca. 1900

 

Measurement: Mount: 11 x 8 1/2 in.; 27.94 x 21.59 cm

 

Classification: Textiles

 

Persistent URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1813.001/613n

 

There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Cornell University Library which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the Library be credited as its source.

Benched ion Seattle Wa

  

President Juncker called for the EU to speak and act as one on a global stage, defend its democratic values and turn its back on poisonous nationalism.

 

“The EU is a global payer, but must also become a global player”, said Jean-Claude Juncker in his speech on the State of the Union 2018. “There are no guarantees that our allies of yesterday will remain our allies of tomorrow”, he added, announcing further proposals to strengthen the Defence Union, step up protection of EU external borders and reinforcethe Euro as an international currency. ”It is absurd that the EU pays 80 % of its bill for energy imports in dollars...whilst only 2% of those energy imports come from the US”, he said.

 

Juncker highlighted the difference between enlightened patriotism and unhealthy nationalism. “Article 7, must be activated where media freedom and the rule of law are under threat”, he said. “There is no democracy without a free press. (...) Respecting judiciary decisions is not an option, but an obligation”. Europe must also shield its democratic process from international and private interests.

 

www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20180906IPR1210...

 

These photos are free to use under Creative Commons licenses and must be credited: "© European Union 2018 - European Parliament" (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives CreativeCommons licenses creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). No model release form if applicable. If you need higher resolution files do not hesitate to contact us. Please do not forget to send the link or a copy of the publication to us: webcom-flickr(AT)europarl.europa.eu

Taken: NJ, USA.

UN VALUE: Human Rights

This is not to say that one with a great amount of experience is always going to have an accurate intuition, however, the chances of it being more reliable are definitely amplified. The boy is taught to obey his teacher. Credit: United Nations/Mondal Nitai

A. Create a design that moves the value from light in the central area to dark in the outer perimeter.

B. Create a design that moves the value from dark in the central area to light at the outer perimeter. The following is what I came up with.

Blogged

Members of the HMCS FREDERICTON diving team after a dive during Operation REASSURANCE on 22 February 2023 in Souda Harbour, Crete.

  

Please credit: Cpl Noé Marchon, Canadian Armed Forces Photo

  

Des membres de l’équipe de plongée du NCSM FREDERICTON après avoir effectué une plongée au cours de l’opération REASSURANCE, le 22 février 2023, dans la baie de Souda, en Grèce.

  

Photo : Cpl Noé Marchon, Forces armées canadiennes

 

The cat (Felis catus), commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae. Recent advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat occurred in the Near East around 7500 BC. It is commonly kept as a house pet and farm cat, but also ranges freely as a feral cat avoiding human contact. It is valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin. Because of its retractable claws it is adapted to killing small prey like mice and rats. It has a strong flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth, and its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. It is a social species, but a solitary hunter and a crepuscular predator. Cat communication includes vocalizations like meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting as well as cat body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. It also secretes and perceives pheromones.

 

Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn in temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Animal population control of cats may be achieved by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of bird, mammal and reptile species.

 

As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats as of 2020. As of 2021, there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world.

 

Etymology and naming

The origin of the English word cat, Old English catt, is thought to be the Late Latin word cattus, which was first used at the beginning of the 6th century. The Late Latin word may be derived from an unidentified African language. The Nubian word kaddîska 'wildcat' and Nobiin kadīs are possible sources or cognates. The Nubian word may be a loan from Arabic قَطّ‎ qaṭṭ ~ قِطّ qiṭṭ.

 

The forms might also have derived from an ancient Germanic word that was imported into Latin and then into Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. The word may be derived from Germanic and Northern European languages, and ultimately be borrowed from Uralic, cf. Northern Sámi gáđfi, 'female stoat', and Hungarian hölgy, 'lady, female stoat'; from Proto-Uralic *käďwä, 'female (of a furred animal)'.

 

The English puss, extended as pussy and pussycat, is attested from the 16th century and may have been introduced from Dutch poes or from Low German puuskatte, related to Swedish kattepus, or Norwegian pus, pusekatt. Similar forms exist in Lithuanian puižė and Irish puisín or puiscín. The etymology of this word is unknown, but it may have arisen from a sound used to attract a cat.

 

A male cat is called a tom or tomcat (or a gib, if neutered). A female is called a queen or a molly, if spayed, especially in a cat-breeding context. A juvenile cat is referred to as a kitten. In Early Modern English, the word kitten was interchangeable with the now-obsolete word catling.

 

A group of cats can be referred to as a clowder or a glaring.

 

Taxonomy

The scientific name Felis catus was proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for a domestic cat. Felis catus domesticus was proposed by Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777. Felis daemon proposed by Konstantin Satunin in 1904 was a black cat from the Transcaucasus, later identified as a domestic cat.

 

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ruled that the domestic cat is a distinct species, namely Felis catus. In 2007, it was considered a subspecies, F. silvestris catus, of the European wildcat (F. silvestris) following results of phylogenetic research. In 2017, the IUCN Cat Classification Taskforce followed the recommendation of the ICZN in regarding the domestic cat as a distinct species, Felis catus.

 

Evolution

Main article: Cat evolution

The domestic cat is a member of the Felidae, a family that had a common ancestor about 10 to 15 million years ago. The evolutionary radiation of the Felidae began in Asia during the Miocene around 8.38 to 14.45 million years ago. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA of all Felidae species indicates a radiation at 6.46 to 16.76 million years ago. The genus Felis genetically diverged from other Felidae around 6 to 7 million years ago. Results of phylogenetic research shows that the wild members of this genus evolved through sympatric or parapatric speciation, whereas the domestic cat evolved through artificial selection. The domestic cat and its closest wild ancestor are diploid and both possess 38 chromosomes and roughly 20,000 genes.

 

Domestication

See also: Domestication of the cat and Cats in ancient Egypt

It was long thought that the domestication of the cat began in ancient Egypt, where cats were venerated from around 3100 BC, However, the earliest known indication for the taming of an African wildcat was excavated close by a human Neolithic grave in Shillourokambos, southern Cyprus, dating to about 7500–7200 BC. Since there is no evidence of native mammalian fauna on Cyprus, the inhabitants of this Neolithic village most likely brought the cat and other wild mammals to the island from the Middle Eastern mainland. Scientists therefore assume that African wildcats were attracted to early human settlements in the Fertile Crescent by rodents, in particular the house mouse (Mus musculus), and were tamed by Neolithic farmers. This mutual relationship between early farmers and tamed cats lasted thousands of years. As agricultural practices spread, so did tame and domesticated cats. Wildcats of Egypt contributed to the maternal gene pool of the domestic cat at a later time.

The earliest known evidence for the occurrence of the domestic cat in Greece dates to around 1200 BC. Greek, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Etruscan traders introduced domestic cats to southern Europe. During the Roman Empire they were introduced to Corsica and Sardinia before the beginning of the 1st millennium. By the 5th century BC, they were familiar animals around settlements in Magna Graecia and Etruria. By the end of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the Egyptian domestic cat lineage had arrived in a Baltic Sea port in northern Germany.

 

The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) was tamed independently in China around 5500 BC. This line of partially domesticated cats leaves no trace in the domestic cat populations of today.

 

During domestication, cats have undergone only minor changes in anatomy and behavior, and they are still capable of surviving in the wild. Several natural behaviors and characteristics of wildcats may have pre-adapted them for domestication as pets. These traits include their small size, social nature, obvious body language, love of play, and high intelligence. Captive Leopardus cats may also display affectionate behavior toward humans but were not domesticated. House cats often mate with feral cats. Hybridisation between domestic and other Felinae species is also possible, producing hybrids such as the Kellas cat in Scotland.

 

Development of cat breeds started in the mid 19th century. An analysis of the domestic cat genome revealed that the ancestral wildcat genome was significantly altered in the process of domestication, as specific mutations were selected to develop cat breeds. Most breeds are founded on random-bred domestic cats. Genetic diversity of these breeds varies between regions, and is lowest in purebred populations, which show more than 20 deleterious genetic disorders.

 

Characteristics

Main article: Cat anatomy

Size

The domestic cat has a smaller skull and shorter bones than the European wildcat. It averages about 46 cm (18 in) in head-to-body length and 23–25 cm (9.1–9.8 in) in height, with about 30 cm (12 in) long tails. Males are larger than females. Adult domestic cats typically weigh 4–5 kg (8.8–11.0 lb).

 

Skeleton

Cats have seven cervical vertebrae (as do most mammals); 13 thoracic vertebrae (humans have 12); seven lumbar vertebrae (humans have five); three sacral vertebrae (as do most mammals, but humans have five); and a variable number of caudal vertebrae in the tail (humans have only three to five vestigial caudal vertebrae, fused into an internal coccyx).  The extra lumbar and thoracic vertebrae account for the cat's spinal mobility and flexibility. Attached to the spine are 13 ribs, the shoulder, and the pelvis.  Unlike human arms, cat forelimbs are attached to the shoulder by free-floating clavicle bones which allow them to pass their body through any space into which they can fit their head.

 

Skull

The cat skull is unusual among mammals in having very large eye sockets and a powerful specialized jaw.  Within the jaw, cats have teeth adapted for killing prey and tearing meat. When it overpowers its prey, a cat delivers a lethal neck bite with its two long canine teeth, inserting them between two of the prey's vertebrae and severing its spinal cord, causing irreversible paralysis and death. Compared to other felines, domestic cats have narrowly spaced canine teeth relative to the size of their jaw, which is an adaptation to their preferred prey of small rodents, which have small vertebrae.

 

The premolar and first molar together compose the carnassial pair on each side of the mouth, which efficiently shears meat into small pieces, like a pair of scissors. These are vital in feeding, since cats' small molars cannot chew food effectively, and cats are largely incapable of mastication.:  Cats tend to have better teeth than most humans, with decay generally less likely because of a thicker protective layer of enamel, a less damaging saliva, less retention of food particles between teeth, and a diet mostly devoid of sugar. Nonetheless, they are subject to occasional tooth loss and infection.

 

Claws

Cats have protractible and retractable claws. In their normal, relaxed position, the claws are sheathed with the skin and fur around the paw's toe pads. This keeps the claws sharp by preventing wear from contact with the ground and allows for the silent stalking of prey. The claws on the forefeet are typically sharper than those on the hindfeet. Cats can voluntarily extend their claws on one or more paws. They may extend their claws in hunting or self-defense, climbing, kneading, or for extra traction on soft surfaces. Cats shed the outside layer of their claw sheaths when scratching rough surfaces.

 

Most cats have five claws on their front paws and four on their rear paws. The dewclaw is proximal to the other claws. More proximally is a protrusion which appears to be a sixth "finger". This special feature of the front paws on the inside of the wrists has no function in normal walking but is thought to be an antiskidding device used while jumping. Some cat breeds are prone to having extra digits ("polydactyly"). Polydactylous cats occur along North America's northeast coast and in Great Britain.

 

Ambulation

The cat is digitigrade. It walks on the toes, with the bones of the feet making up the lower part of the visible leg. Unlike most mammals, it uses a "pacing" gait and moves both legs on one side of the body before the legs on the other side. It registers directly by placing each hind paw close to the track of the corresponding fore paw, minimizing noise and visible tracks. This also provides sure footing for hind paws when navigating rough terrain. As it speeds up from walking to trotting, its gait changes to a "diagonal" gait: The diagonally opposite hind and fore legs move simultaneously.

 

Balance

Cats are generally fond of sitting in high places or perching. A higher place may serve as a concealed site from which to hunt; domestic cats strike prey by pouncing from a perch such as a tree branch. Another possible explanation is that height gives the cat a better observation point, allowing it to survey its territory. A cat falling from heights of up to 3 m (9.8 ft) can right itself and land on its paws.

 

During a fall from a high place, a cat reflexively twists its body and rights itself to land on its feet using its acute sense of balance and flexibility. This reflex is known as the cat righting reflex. A cat always rights itself in the same way during a fall, if it has enough time to do so, which is the case in falls of 90 cm (3.0 ft) or more. How cats are able to right themselves when falling has been investigated as the "falling cat problem".

 

Coats

Main article: Cat coat genetics

The cat family (Felidae) can pass down many colors and patterns to their offspring. The domestic cat genes MC1R and ASIP allow for the variety of color in coats. The feline ASIP gene consists of three coding exons. Three novel microsatellite markers linked to ASIP were isolated from a domestic cat BAC clone containing this gene and were used to perform linkage analysis in a pedigree of 89 domestic cats that segregated for melanism.[citation needed]

 

Senses

Main article: Cat senses

Vision

A cat's nictitating membrane shown as it blinks

Cats have excellent night vision and can see at only one-sixth the light level required for human vision.  This is partly the result of cat eyes having a tapetum lucidum, which reflects any light that passes through the retina back into the eye, thereby increasing the eye's sensitivity to dim light. Large pupils are an adaptation to dim light. The domestic cat has slit pupils, which allow it to focus bright light without chromatic aberration. At low light, a cat's pupils expand to cover most of the exposed surface of its eyes. The domestic cat has rather poor color vision and only two types of cone cells, optimized for sensitivity to blue and yellowish green; its ability to distinguish between red and green is limited. A response to middle wavelengths from a system other than the rod cells might be due to a third type of cone. This appears to be an adaptation to low light levels rather than representing true trichromatic vision. Cats also have a nictitating membrane, allowing them to blink without hindering their vision.

 

Hearing

The domestic cat's hearing is most acute in the range of 500 Hz to 32 kHz. It can detect an extremely broad range of frequencies ranging from 55 Hz to 79 kHz, whereas humans can only detect frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. It can hear a range of 10.5 octaves, while humans and dogs can hear ranges of about 9 octaves. Its hearing sensitivity is enhanced by its large movable outer ears, the pinnae, which amplify sounds and help detect the location of a noise. It can detect ultrasound, which enables it to detect ultrasonic calls made by rodent prey. Recent research has shown that cats have socio-spatial cognitive abilities to create mental maps of owners' locations based on hearing owners' voices.

 

Smell

Cats have an acute sense of smell, due in part to their well-developed olfactory bulb and a large surface of olfactory mucosa, about 5.8 cm2 (0.90 in2) in area, which is about twice that of humans. Cats and many other animals have a Jacobson's organ in their mouths that is used in the behavioral process of flehmening. It allows them to sense certain aromas in a way that humans cannot. Cats are sensitive to pheromones such as 3-mercapto-3-methylbutan-1-ol, which they use to communicate through urine spraying and marking with scent glands. Many cats also respond strongly to plants that contain nepetalactone, especially catnip, as they can detect that substance at less than one part per billion. About 70–80% of cats are affected by nepetalactone. This response is also produced by other plants, such as silver vine (Actinidia polygama) and the herb valerian; it may be caused by the smell of these plants mimicking a pheromone and stimulating cats' social or sexual behaviors.

 

Taste

Cats have relatively few taste buds compared to humans (470 or so versus more than 9,000 on the human tongue). Domestic and wild cats share a taste receptor gene mutation that keeps their sweet taste buds from binding to sugary molecules, leaving them with no ability to taste sweetness. They, however, possess taste bud receptors specialized for acids, amino acids like protein, and bitter tastes. Their taste buds possess the receptors needed to detect umami. However, these receptors contain molecular changes that make the cat taste of umami different from that of humans. In humans, they detect the amino acids of glutamic acid and aspartic acid, but in cats they instead detect nucleotides, in this case inosine monophosphate and l-Histidine. These nucleotides are particularly enriched in tuna. This has been argued is why cats find tuna so palatable: as put by researchers into cat taste, "the specific combination of the high IMP and free l-Histidine contents of tuna" .. "produces a strong umami taste synergy that is highly preferred by cats". One of the researchers involved in this research has further claimed, "I think umami is as important for cats as sweet is for humans".[87]

 

Cats also have a distinct temperature preference for their food, preferring food with a temperature around 38 °C (100 °F) which is similar to that of a fresh kill; some cats reject cold food (which would signal to the cat that the "prey" item is long dead and therefore possibly toxic or decomposing).

 

Whiskers

To aid with navigation and sensation, cats have dozens of movable whiskers (vibrissae) over their body, especially their faces. These provide information on the width of gaps and on the location of objects in the dark, both by touching objects directly and by sensing air currents; they also trigger protective blink reflexes to protect the eyes from damage.: 47 

 

Behavior

See also: Cat behavior

Outdoor cats are active both day and night, although they tend to be slightly more active at night.[88] Domestic cats spend the majority of their time in the vicinity of their homes but can range many hundreds of meters from this central point. They establish territories that vary considerably in size, in one study ranging 7–28 ha (17–69 acres). The timing of cats' activity is quite flexible and varied but being low-light predators, they are generally crepuscular, which means they tend to be more active near dawn and dusk. However, house cats' behavior is also influenced by human activity and they may adapt to their owners' sleeping patterns to some extent.

 

Cats conserve energy by sleeping more than most animals, especially as they grow older. The daily duration of sleep varies, usually between 12 and 16 hours, with 13 and 14 being the average. Some cats can sleep as much as 20 hours. The term "cat nap" for a short rest refers to the cat's tendency to fall asleep (lightly) for a brief period. While asleep, cats experience short periods of rapid eye movement sleep often accompanied by muscle twitches, which suggests they are dreaming.

 

Sociability

The social behavior of the domestic cat ranges from widely dispersed individuals to feral cat colonies that gather around a food source, based on groups of co-operating females. Within such groups, one cat is usually dominant over the others. Each cat in a colony holds a distinct territory, with sexually active males having the largest territories, which are about 10 times larger than those of female cats and may overlap with several females' territories. These territories are marked by urine spraying, by rubbing objects at head height with secretions from facial glands, and by defecation. Between these territories are neutral areas where cats watch and greet one another without territorial conflicts. Outside these neutral areas, territory holders usually chase away stranger cats, at first by staring, hissing, and growling and, if that does not work, by short but noisy and violent attacks. Despite this colonial organization, cats do not have a social survival strategy or a herd behavior, and always hunt alone.

 

Life in proximity to humans and other domestic animals has led to a symbiotic social adaptation in cats, and cats may express great affection toward humans or other animals. Ethologically, a cat's human keeper functions as if a mother surrogate. Adult cats live their lives in a kind of extended kittenhood, a form of behavioral neoteny. Their high-pitched sounds may mimic the cries of a hungry human infant, making them particularly difficult for humans to ignore. Some pet cats are poorly socialized. In particular, older cats show aggressiveness toward newly arrived kittens, which include biting and scratching; this type of behavior is known as feline asocial aggression.

 

Redirected aggression is a common form of aggression which can occur in multiple cat households. In redirected aggression there is usually something that agitates the cat: this could be a sight, sound, or another source of stimuli which causes a heightened level of anxiety or arousal. If the cat cannot attack the stimuli, it may direct anger elsewhere by attacking or directing aggression to the nearest cat, dog, human or other being.

 

Domestic cats' scent rubbing behavior toward humans or other cats is thought to be a feline means for social bonding.

 

Communication

Main article: Cat communication

Domestic cats use many vocalizations for communication, including purring, trilling, hissing, growling/snarling, grunting, and several different forms of meowing. Their body language, including position of ears and tail, relaxation of the whole body, and kneading of the paws, are all indicators of mood. The tail and ears are particularly important social signal mechanisms in cats. A raised tail indicates a friendly greeting, and flattened ears indicate hostility. Tail-raising also indicates the cat's position in the group's social hierarchy, with dominant individuals raising their tails less often than subordinate ones. Feral cats are generally silent.: 208  Nose-to-nose touching is also a common greeting and may be followed by social grooming, which is solicited by one of the cats raising and tilting its head.

 

Purring may have developed as an evolutionary advantage as a signaling mechanism of reassurance between mother cats and nursing kittens, who are thought to use it as a care-soliciting signal. Post-nursing cats also often purr as a sign of contentment: when being petted, becoming relaxed, or eating. Even though purring is popularly interpreted as indicative of pleasure, it has been recorded in a wide variety of circumstances, most of which involve physical contact between the cat and another, presumably trusted individual. Some cats have been observed to purr continuously when chronically ill or in apparent pain.

 

The exact mechanism by which cats purr has long been elusive, but it has been proposed that purring is generated via a series of sudden build-ups and releases of pressure as the glottis is opened and closed, which causes the vocal folds to separate forcefully. The laryngeal muscles in control of the glottis are thought to be driven by a neural oscillator which generates a cycle of contraction and release every 30–40 milliseconds (giving a frequency of 33 to 25 Hz).

 

Domestic cats observed in a rescue facility have total of 276 distinct facial expressions based on 26 different facial movements; each facial expression corresponds to different social functions that are likely influenced by domestication.

 

Grooming

Cats are known for spending considerable amounts of time licking their coats to keep them clean. The cat's tongue has backward-facing spines about 500 μm long, which are called papillae. These contain keratin which makes them rigid so the papillae act like a hairbrush. Some cats, particularly longhaired cats, occasionally regurgitate hairballs of fur that have collected in their stomachs from grooming. These clumps of fur are usually sausage-shaped and about 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) long. Hairballs can be prevented with remedies that ease elimination of the hair through the gut, as well as regular grooming of the coat with a comb or stiff brush.

 

Fighting

Among domestic cats, males are more likely to fight than females. Among feral cats, the most common reason for cat fighting is competition between two males to mate with a female. In such cases, most fights are won by the heavier male. Another common reason for fighting in domestic cats is the difficulty of establishing territories within a small home. Female cats also fight over territory or to defend their kittens. Neutering will decrease or eliminate this behavior in many cases, suggesting that the behavior is linked to sex hormones.

 

When cats become aggressive, they try to make themselves appear larger and more threatening by raising their fur, arching their backs, turning sideways and hissing or spitting. Often, the ears are pointed down and back to avoid damage to the inner ear and potentially listen for any changes behind them while focused forward. Cats may also vocalize loudly and bare their teeth in an effort to further intimidate their opponents. Fights usually consist of grappling and delivering powerful slaps to the face and body with the forepaws as well as bites. Cats also throw themselves to the ground in a defensive posture to rake their opponent's belly with their powerful hind legs.

 

Serious damage is rare, as the fights are usually short in duration, with the loser running away with little more than a few scratches to the face and ears. Fights for mating rights are typically more severe and injuries may include deep puncture wounds and lacerations. Normally, serious injuries from fighting are limited to infections of scratches and bites, though these can occasionally kill cats if untreated. In addition, bites are probably the main route of transmission of feline immunodeficiency virus. Sexually active males are usually involved in many fights during their lives, and often have decidedly battered faces with obvious scars and cuts to their ears and nose. Cats are willing to threaten animals larger than them to defend their territory, such as dogs and foxes.

 

Hunting and feeding

See also: Cat food

The shape and structure of cats' cheeks is insufficient to allow them to take in liquids using suction. Therefore, when drinking they lap with the tongue to draw liquid upward into their mouths. Lapping at a rate of four times a second, the cat touches the smooth tip of its tongue to the surface of the water, and quickly retracts it like a corkscrew, drawing water upward.

 

Feral cats and free-fed house cats consume several small meals in a day. The frequency and size of meals varies between individuals. They select food based on its temperature, smell and texture; they dislike chilled foods and respond most strongly to moist foods rich in amino acids, which are similar to meat. Cats reject novel flavors (a response termed neophobia) and learn quickly to avoid foods that have tasted unpleasant in the past. It is also a common misconception that cats like milk/cream, as they tend to avoid sweet food and milk. Most adult cats are lactose intolerant; the sugar in milk is not easily digested and may cause soft stools or diarrhea. Some also develop odd eating habits and like to eat or chew on things like wool, plastic, cables, paper, string, aluminum foil, or even coal. This condition, pica, can threaten their health, depending on the amount and toxicity of the items eaten.

 

Cats hunt small prey, primarily birds and rodents, and are often used as a form of pest control. Other common small creatures such as lizards and snakes may also become prey. Cats use two hunting strategies, either stalking prey actively, or waiting in ambush until an animal comes close enough to be captured. The strategy used depends on the prey species in the area, with cats waiting in ambush outside burrows, but tending to actively stalk birds.: 153  Domestic cats are a major predator of wildlife in the United States, killing an estimated 1.3 to 4.0 billion birds and 6.3 to 22.3 billion mammals annually.

 

Certain species appear more susceptible than others; in one English village, for example, 30% of house sparrow mortality was linked to the domestic cat. In the recovery of ringed robins (Erithacus rubecula) and dunnocks (Prunella modularis) in Britain, 31% of deaths were a result of cat predation. In parts of North America, the presence of larger carnivores such as coyotes which prey on cats and other small predators reduces the effect of predation by cats and other small predators such as opossums and raccoons on bird numbers and variety.

 

Perhaps the best-known element of cats' hunting behavior, which is commonly misunderstood and often appalls cat owners because it looks like torture, is that cats often appear to "play" with prey by releasing and recapturing it. This cat and mouse behavior is due to an instinctive imperative to ensure that the prey is weak enough to be killed without endangering the cat.

 

Another poorly understood element of cat hunting behavior is the presentation of prey to human guardians. One explanation is that cats adopt humans into their social group and share excess kill with others in the group according to the dominance hierarchy, in which humans are reacted to as if they are at or near the top. Another explanation is that they attempt to teach their guardians to hunt or to help their human as if feeding "an elderly cat, or an inept kitten". This hypothesis is inconsistent with the fact that male cats also bring home prey, despite males having negligible involvement in raising kittens.:

 

Play

Main article: Cat play and toys

Domestic cats, especially young kittens, are known for their love of play. This behavior mimics hunting and is important in helping kittens learn to stalk, capture, and kill prey. Cats also engage in play fighting, with each other and with humans. This behavior may be a way for cats to practice the skills needed for real combat, and might also reduce any fear they associate with launching attacks on other animals.

 

Cats also tend to play with toys more when they are hungry. Owing to the close similarity between play and hunting, cats prefer to play with objects that resemble prey, such as small furry toys that move rapidly, but rapidly lose interest. They become habituated to a toy they have played with before. String is often used as a toy, but if it is eaten, it can become caught at the base of the cat's tongue and then move into the intestines, a medical emergency which can cause serious illness, even death. Owing to the risks posed by cats eating string, it is sometimes replaced with a laser pointer's dot, which cats may chase.

 

Reproduction

See also: Kitten

The cat secretes and perceives pheromones. Female cats, called queens, are polyestrous with several estrus cycles during a year, lasting usually 21 days. They are usually ready to mate between early February and August in northern temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions.

 

Several males, called tomcats, are attracted to a female in heat. They fight over her, and the victor wins the right to mate. At first, the female rejects the male, but eventually, the female allows the male to mate. The female utters a loud yowl as the male pulls out of her because a male cat's penis has a band of about 120–150 backward-pointing penile spines, which are about 1 mm (0.039 in) long; upon withdrawal of the penis, the spines may provide the female with increased sexual stimulation, which acts to induce ovulation.

 

After mating, the female cleans her vulva thoroughly. If a male attempts to mate with her at this point, the female attacks him. After about 20 to 30 minutes, once the female is finished grooming, the cycle will repeat. Because ovulation is not always triggered by a single mating, females may not be impregnated by the first male with which they mate. Furthermore, cats are superfecund; that is, a female may mate with more than one male when she is in heat, with the result that different kittens in a litter may have different fathers.

 

The morula forms 124 hours after conception. At 148 hours, early blastocysts form. At 10–12 days, implantation occurs. The gestation of queens lasts between 64 and 67 days, with an average of 65 days.

 

Data on the reproductive capacity of more than 2,300 free-ranging queens were collected during a study between May 1998 and October 2000. They had one to six kittens per litter, with an average of three kittens. They produced a mean of 1.4 litters per year, but a maximum of three litters in a year. Of 169 kittens, 127 died before they were six months old due to a trauma caused in most cases by dog attacks and road accidents. The first litter is usually smaller than subsequent litters. Kittens are weaned between six and seven weeks of age. Queens normally reach sexual maturity at 5–10 months, and males at 5–7 months. This varies depending on breed. Kittens reach puberty at the age of 9–10 months.

 

Cats are ready to go to new homes at about 12 weeks of age, when they are ready to leave their mother. They can be surgically sterilized (spayed or castrated) as early as seven weeks to limit unwanted reproduction. This surgery also prevents undesirable sex-related behavior, such as aggression, territory marking (spraying urine) in males and yowling (calling) in females. Traditionally, this surgery was performed at around six to nine months of age, but it is increasingly being performed before puberty, at about three to six months. In the United States, about 80% of household cats are neutered.

 

Lifespan and health

Main articles: Cat health and Aging in cats

The average lifespan of pet cats has risen in recent decades. In the early 1980s, it was about seven years,: 33  rising to 9.4 years in 1995: 33  and an average of about 13 years as of 2014 and 2023. Some cats have been reported as surviving into their 30s, with the oldest known cat dying at a verified age of 38.

 

Neutering increases life expectancy: one study found castrated male cats live twice as long as intact males, while spayed female cats live 62% longer than intact females.: 35  Having a cat neutered confers health benefits, because castrated males cannot develop testicular cancer, spayed females cannot develop uterine or ovarian cancer, and both have a reduced risk of mammary cancer.

 

Disease

Main article: List of feline diseases

About 250 heritable genetic disorders have been identified in cats, many similar to human inborn errors of metabolism. The high level of similarity among the metabolism of mammals allows many of these feline diseases to be diagnosed using genetic tests that were originally developed for use in humans, as well as the use of cats as animal models in the study of the human diseases. Diseases affecting domestic cats include acute infections, parasitic infestations, injuries, and chronic diseases such as kidney disease, thyroid disease, and arthritis. Vaccinations are available for many infectious diseases, as are treatments to eliminate parasites such as worms, ticks, and fleas.

 

Ecology

Habitats

The domestic cat is a cosmopolitan species and occurs across much of the world. It is adaptable and now present on all continents except Antarctica, and on 118 of the 131 main groups of islands, even on the isolated Kerguelen Islands. Due to its ability to thrive in almost any terrestrial habitat, it is among the world's most invasive species. It lives on small islands with no human inhabitants. Feral cats can live in forests, grasslands, tundra, coastal areas, agricultural land, scrublands, urban areas, and wetlands.

 

The unwantedness that leads to the domestic cat being treated as an invasive species is twofold. On one hand, as it is little altered from the wildcat, it can readily interbreed with the wildcat. This hybridization poses a danger to the genetic distinctiveness of some wildcat populations, particularly in Scotland and Hungary, possibly also the Iberian Peninsula, and where protected natural areas are close to human-dominated landscapes, such as Kruger National Park in South Africa. However, its introduction to places where no native felines are present also contributes to the decline of native species.

 

Ferality

Main article: Feral cat

Feral cats are domestic cats that were born in or have reverted to a wild state. They are unfamiliar with and wary of humans and roam freely in urban and rural areas. The numbers of feral cats is not known, but estimates of the United States feral population range from 25 to 60 million. Feral cats may live alone, but most are found in large colonies, which occupy a specific territory and are usually associated with a source of food. Famous feral cat colonies are found in Rome around the Colosseum and Forum Romanum, with cats at some of these sites being fed and given medical attention by volunteers.

 

Public attitudes toward feral cats vary widely, from seeing them as free-ranging pets to regarding them as vermin.

 

Some feral cats can be successfully socialized and 're-tamed' for adoption; young cats, especially kittens and cats that have had prior experience and contact with humans are the most receptive to these efforts.

 

Impact on wildlife

Main article: Cat predation on wildlife

On islands, birds can contribute as much as 60% of a cat's diet. In nearly all cases, the cat cannot be identified as the sole cause for reducing the numbers of island birds, and in some instances, eradication of cats has caused a "mesopredator release" effect; where the suppression of top carnivores creates an abundance of smaller predators that cause a severe decline in their shared prey. Domestic cats are a contributing factor to the decline of many species, a factor that has ultimately led, in some cases, to extinction. The South Island piopio, Chatham rail, and the New Zealand merganser are a few from a long list, with the most extreme case being the flightless Lyall's wren, which was driven to extinction only a few years after its discovery. One feral cat in New Zealand killed 102 New Zealand lesser short-tailed bats in seven days. In the US, feral and free-ranging domestic cats kill an estimated 6.3 – 22.3 billion mammals annually.

 

In Australia, the impact of cats on mammal populations is even greater than the impact of habitat loss. More than one million reptiles are killed by feral cats each day, representing 258 species. Cats have contributed to the extinction of the Navassa curly-tailed lizard and Chioninia coctei.

 

Interaction with humans

Main article: Human interaction with cats

Cats are common pets throughout the world, and their worldwide population as of 2007 exceeded 500 million. As of 2017, the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats as of 2020. As of 2021, there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world.

 

Cats have been used for millennia to control rodents, notably around grain stores and aboard ships, and both uses extend to the present day.

 

As well as being kept as pets, cats are also used in the international fur trade and leather industries for making coats, hats, blankets, stuffed toys, shoes, gloves, and musical instruments. About 24 cats are needed to make a cat-fur coat. This use has been outlawed in the United States since 2000 and in the European Union (as well as the United Kingdom) since 2007.

 

Cat pelts have been used for superstitious purposes as part of the practice of witchcraft, and are still made into blankets in Switzerland as traditional medicine thought to cure rheumatism.

 

A few attempts to build a cat census have been made over the years, both through associations or national and international organizations (such as that of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies) and over the Internet, but such a task does not seem simple to achieve. General estimates for the global population of domestic cats range widely from anywhere between 200 million to 600 million. Walter Chandoha made his career photographing cats after his 1949 images of Loco, an especially charming stray taken in, were published around the world. He is reported to have photographed 90,000 cats during his career and maintained an archive of 225,000 images that he drew from for publications during his lifetime.

 

Shows

Main article: Cat show

A cat show is a judged event in which the owners of cats compete to win titles in various cat-registering organizations by entering their cats to be judged after a breed standard. It is often required that a cat must be healthy and vaccinated in order to participate in a cat show. Both pedigreed and non-purebred companion ("moggy") cats are admissible, although the rules differ depending on the organization. Competing cats are compared to the applicable breed standard, and assessed for temperament.

 

Infection

Main article: Feline zoonosis

Cats can be infected or infested with viruses, bacteria, fungus, protozoans, arthropods or worms that can transmit diseases to humans. In some cases, the cat exhibits no symptoms of the disease. The same disease can then become evident in a human. The likelihood that a person will become diseased depends on the age and immune status of the person. Humans who have cats living in their home or in close association are more likely to become infected. Others might also acquire infections from cat feces and parasites exiting the cat's body. Some of the infections of most concern include salmonella, cat-scratch disease and toxoplasmosis.

 

History and mythology

Main articles: Cultural depictions of cats and Cats in ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, cats were worshipped, and the goddess Bastet often depicted in cat form, sometimes taking on the war-like aspect of a lioness. The Greek historian Herodotus reported that killing a cat was forbidden, and when a household cat died, the entire family mourned and shaved their eyebrows. Families took their dead cats to the sacred city of Bubastis, where they were embalmed and buried in sacred repositories. Herodotus expressed astonishment at the domestic cats in Egypt, because he had only ever seen wildcats.

 

Ancient Greeks and Romans kept weasels as pets, which were seen as the ideal rodent-killers. The earliest unmistakable evidence of the Greeks having domestic cats comes from two coins from Magna Graecia dating to the mid-fifth century BC showing Iokastos and Phalanthos, the legendary founders of Rhegion and Taras respectively, playing with their pet cats. The usual ancient Greek word for 'cat' was ailouros, meaning 'thing with the waving tail'. Cats are rarely mentioned in ancient Greek literature. Aristotle remarked in his History of Animals that "female cats are naturally lecherous." The Greeks later syncretized their own goddess Artemis with the Egyptian goddess Bastet, adopting Bastet's associations with cats and ascribing them to Artemis. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, when the deities flee to Egypt and take animal forms, the goddess Diana turns into a cat.

 

Cats eventually displaced weasels as the pest control of choice because they were more pleasant to have around the house and were more enthusiastic hunters of mice. During the Middle Ages, many of Artemis's associations with cats were grafted onto the Virgin Mary. Cats are often shown in icons of Annunciation and of the Holy Family and, according to Italian folklore, on the same night that Mary gave birth to Jesus, a cat in Bethlehem gave birth to a kitten. Domestic cats were spread throughout much of the rest of the world during the Age of Discovery, as ships' cats were carried on sailing ships to control shipboard rodents and as good-luck charms.

 

Several ancient religions believed cats are exalted souls, companions or guides for humans, that are all-knowing but mute so they cannot influence decisions made by humans. In Japan, the maneki neko cat is a symbol of good fortune. In Norse mythology, Freyja, the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, is depicted as riding a chariot drawn by cats. In Jewish legend, the first cat was living in the house of the first man Adam as a pet that got rid of mice. The cat was once partnering with the first dog before the latter broke an oath they had made which resulted in enmity between the descendants of these two animals. It is also written that neither cats nor foxes are represented in the water, while every other animal has an incarnation species in the water. Although no species are sacred in Islam, cats are revered by Muslims. Some Western writers have stated Muhammad had a favorite cat, Muezza. He is reported to have loved cats so much, "he would do without his cloak rather than disturb one that was sleeping on it". The story has no origin in early Muslim writers, and seems to confuse a story of a later Sufi saint, Ahmed ar-Rifa'i, centuries after Muhammad. One of the companions of Muhammad was known as Abu Hurayrah ("father of the kitten"), in reference to his documented affection to cats.

 

Superstitions and rituals

Many cultures have negative superstitions about cats. An example would be the belief that encountering a black cat ("crossing one's path") leads to bad luck, or that cats are witches' familiars used to augment a witch's powers and skills. The killing of cats in Medieval Ypres, Belgium, is commemorated in the innocuous present-day Kattenstoet (cat parade). In mid-16th century France, cats would be burnt alive as a form of entertainment, particularly during midsummer festivals. According to Norman Davies, the assembled people "shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized". The remaining ashes were sometimes taken back home by the people for good luck.

 

According to a myth in many cultures, cats have multiple lives. In many countries, they are believed to have nine lives, but in Italy, Germany, Greece, Brazil and some Spanish-speaking regions, they are said to have seven lives, while in Arabic traditions, the number of lives is six. An early mention of the myth can be found in John Heywood's The Proverbs of John Heywood (1546)

 

Husband, (quoth she), ye studie, be merrie now,

And even as ye thinke now, so come to yow.

Nay not so, (quoth he), for my thought to tell right,

I thinke how you lay groning, wife, all last night.

Husband, a groning horse and a groning wife

Never faile their master, (quoth she), for my life.

No wife, a woman hath nine lives like a cat.

 

The myth is attributed to the natural suppleness and swiftness cats exhibit to escape life-threatening situations. Also lending credence to this myth is the fact that falling cats often land on their feet, using an instinctive righting reflex to twist their bodies around. Nonetheless, cats can still be injured or killed by a high fall.