By Elisa Black-Taylor
If you use your search engine and Google “cat slaps alligator” or “cat vs alligator,” you’ll be directed to several YouTube videos. I’ve chosen the best two for this article. As though there can be a “best” when a cats life is purposely placed in danger for the entertainment of people. Maybe I just don’t understand people who will go to any length for their moment of fame.
Before I begin, I’d like to inform the readers that no cats (or alligators) were harmed during the making of these two videos. For those of you too squeamish to watch these YouTube cat vs. alligator videos, here’s what happened.
Here’s the first video.
This video shows an alligator trying to get out of the water and feed on what’s said by those doing the video commentary to be (raw?)chicken. There’s a cat waiting on the bank who slaps the alligator anytime he gets close to the food. Eventually the alligator eats the chicken with the cat sitting nearby.
This is an exceptionally good video, although a bit scary.
The other video was sent to me by my boss. He saw the cat and thought of me. I’m a bit more worried about this one, as an older child is fairly close as their cat slaps the alligator. Thanks to all of the publicity about gators given to Americans by the late Steve Irwin(Crocodile Hunter), I’m sure these gators can move rather fast when they want to. This is bad not only for the cat involved, but also for anyone else nearby.
These videos were made in what the cat owners probably thought was good fun. Was it really? Personally, I’d keep a cat as far away from an alligator as possible. One wrong move or one irritated gator could mean the death of the cat.
Is this just another way people are exploiting the cat for personal gain? It’s likely, as many videos now go viral, causing others to imitate. Having a video go viral is important to those on the internet who want to become famous. Average people have made it onto talk shows or the national news by posting unusual videos online.
Have any cats died while providing this “entertainment” for their owners? We’re not likely to ever know.
I’m just glad the alligators in both of the cat slaps alligator videos have a healthy respect for the cat. It shows that cats can put up a good fight in times of danger.
My dog Dreyfuss (although not a gator) also has respect for cats after being slapped in the nose by my cat Salem back in 2004. Dreyfuss didn’t realize I’d brought Salem to his new home after we moved. I had Salem in a chair beside me taking a kitty nap. Dreyfuss put his head on the arm of the chair for a head rub and took a nasty swat from a disturbed cat. It took years for Dreyfuss to walk anywhere near a cats paw.
A gator is a far stretch from a dog. My guess is the cats have given the alligators enough nose slaps to make them wary. These gators may be what’s considered tame to those living near their territory. Still, I hope those portrayed in these YouTube videos continue to fear these cats. Some may also consider this abuse to the alligator.
These videos also show one more reason cats need claws.
I’m curious what the readers here think about what I’d consider exploitation of both animals, intentional or not.
Alot of people, including one or two I know, sadly, have the philosophy that they should just let their cat be a cat and not interfere. One of those friends takes it a step further by refusing to spay her 2 females. It’s god awful really, I can’t stand it.
I think a good test is whether I would allow my cat near an alligator. The answer is a definite “no”. Just too risky. There is no doubt a certain element of exploitation here. People are desperate to make a successful YouTube video that gets millions of hits as it can make reasonable money through Google Adsense. The video has to have millions of hits rather rapidly to make decent money and videos like that are as rare as hens teeth. The goal is almost impossible to achieve so it is rather pointless to put your cat through that amount of risk. Perhaps these alligators are friendly 🙂 I still wouldn’t risk my cat. It depends how close you are to your cat and how caring a cat caretaker you are. There is a wide spectrum of types of cat owners. Some are pretty unconcerned.
I watched our cat Spot “charm” a copperhead back in 1983. We were sitting in the swing with my infant daughter when I saw what I believed to be a stick. My mother asked me about the stick as she’d recently picked up some for the trash pile. I told mama over next to Spot. Then the stick started moving. Spot had placed himself between the snake and my family and stayed with the snake until my husband got a hoe and killed it. It was terrifying. I can’t imagine someone wanting to film a dangerous situation.
Yep, the family that own the alligator farm (for meat I think) saw their cat fend of the alligators and have made a few dollars doing it. People can pay to see the cat, is my understanding. They also made a few smaller cable channels. Small beans, really.
My mom’s cat Fluffy would chase dogs of all size and ferocity out of our yard in our first house. She was a medium build, gray Manx with a full lush tail. Our neighborhood bully, a good sized male German Shepard was terrified of her. Another dog was curious about her and tried to paw at her a bit before finally deciding she was more cat than he was curious. Good for her. Our yard was free of dogs (and other cats, for that matter). My mentally handicapped brother — who is afraid of dogs and cats — played without fear. I’ll have to show a pix of her. She really was pretty cat.
You know, she was mean to everyone except mom. When she was a very young kitten, a pet raccoon (she lived at my cat-lady Aunt’s house) picked her up by the throat and shook her, trying to kill her. Several of Fluffy’s bigger older brothers came to her rescue, attacking the raccoon en masse. The kitten was delivered to my mom the next day via a very drunk man. Another reminder that our cats were once fully wild.