Star Creature

via Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke

We love our kitty cats. 🐱

We love our wildlife. 🐦

...But we need to talk about something extremely important to them both.

Much ink has been spilled regarding the ethics of letting your domestic cats outdoors or keeping them enclosed, and how healthy/unhealthy it is to let them roam.

However, we're going to focus on the perspective of what we see at our wildlife center, and the hundreds of cat-caught patients we see each year. The pictures in this post are some of our patients from this year.

"My cat never brought anything home before!"

"I always tell my cat not to hunt, but he doesn't listen!"

"My cat is a free spirit, she always meows at the door if I try to bring her inside!"

These are things we hear from outdoor cat owners who are often heartbroken to find a maimed, bleeding baby bunny or baby bird at their doorstep in the spring after they let their domestic cat roam. We gently educate this rescuer about how important it is to keep our pets contained, and then take the poor patient back for medical care.

Less than 1 in 5 patients survive the ordeal, even when we provide medical care and antibiotics to combat cats' deadly saliva. 😥 We have watched far too many wild animals take their final breaths in our hands, knowing that this could have been prevented.

If we consider ourselves "animal lovers," then we can't hold our pet cat's mental stimulation above wildlife's right to survive as nature intended. If we want to be good stewards of our planet, we owe it to our wild neighbors to not introduce invasive predators into their environment. This means trapping and adopting out stray cats (NOT re-abandoning them to the wild), keeping our cats indoors, in catios, or on leashes.

Since our pet cats are not native (like pet dogs, domesticated animals are by definition no longer wild!), the problem of feral and stray cats are a man-made issue. We owe it to our planet, our furry feline friends, and our wild neighbors to work together to protect them both! 🐦❤🐱

Update: The adult Robin in the second-to-last image did not survive their wounds. They passed, as well, a few days before this post went out. 🙁

Dr bfly's Ginger Citrus Spice Cookies

AKA the cookie recipe I've been fiddling with and refining for like a decade and the only cookies I make anymore because I like them too much Ingredients: • 12 Tbsp (1.5 sticks) butter - I'm lazy and use salted most of the time. idk how europeans measure their butter so do your own conversion • 3/4 tsp salt if using unsalted butter • ¼ cup molasses • 1 large egg • 2¼ cup all-purpose flour • 1.5 cup brown sugar • 1 tsp baking soda • 1 Tbsp ground ginger • 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon • 1 tsp ground cloves • 1 tsp ground allspice • ½ tsp ground nutmeg • ½ tsp ground cardamom • ½+ cup minced candied ginger • ½+ cup minced candied orange peel • up to a shot's worth ~(40ml) bourbon, Cointreau, both, or other liquor according to taste • Optional: 1-2 tbsp powdered buddha's hand* • turbinado sugar

*this is an ingredient I invented because a friend kept giving me buddha's hand so I started candying it like you would make candied orange peel or whatever but it still kept going bad so I stuck it in a dehydrator for a whole day and then put it into a spice grinder and it's great for imparting a citrusy floral note to any baked goods. You could probably approximate the same by candying, dehydrating, and grinding other citrus peels.

Instructions:

Soften butter in large mixing bowl. Beat in egg and molasses. If in a rush, butter can be gently melted, but be careful to let it cool for a few minutes at least before adding in egg. Using melted butter will give the final cookies a more “crinkly” appearance and texture, which may or may not be to your taste. I like them both ways, personally.

Stir in sugar, as well as minced ginger, orange peel, and bourbon if you’re using it.

In separate mixing bowl, evenly stir or sift together all remaining ingredients except for the turbinado sugar

Slowly beat dry mixture into wet mixture. The dough is very thick and sticky, so a hand mixer may have problems. I recommend either a stand mixer with paddle attachment or a wooden spoon and a strong arm.

Refrigerate dough for at least 3 hours. If in a rush, you can put it in the freezer for 30 minutes, and then pop it back in between batches. You should be able to handle the dough without it sticking all over your hands.

Preheat oven to 350F (~175C)

Roll dough into balls no more than ¾ inch (~20mm) in diameter. Pour turbinado sugar onto a plate and then roll dough balls in the sugar and squash down into discs.

Place on parchment paper covered baking sheet and bake for 10-13 minutes

😎

And for anyone outside the US, conversion to metric under the cut: