The distinguished and important cat breed, the Turkish Angora, has been hijacked not once but twice. While the real Turkish Angora resides in Turkey the American cat fancy has created a new cat and given it the name “Turkish Angora”. It is not even a good replica of the original. It neither looks like the original nor has the same DNA as the original2. Yet, it has the same name. I have called this a “theft”. It is a theft of the name and what the name represents. It is a bit like stealing a trademark in the business sense.
The “new model” seems to correspond with what the American cat fancy calls “refined” which in this case appears to mean thinner. “Refined” means anything other than the original appearance because the original is too “ordinary”.
The other hijacking of the name “Turkish Angora” is by the creators of a new breed of cat, the “Cyprus Aphrodite Giant”. This cat has been accepted and registered by the World Cat Federation (WCF), a European cat association. It has the same “genetic heritage” as the Turkish Angora and is identical to the “the true Turkish Van”1 but is called something else. This is a shoddy way to proceed.
In America, scientific research, using DNA testing into the genetic history of the cat breeds and their origins has fudged the differences between the “created” cat that Sarah Hartwell renames the “American Angora” and the real Turkish Angora. The reason? To rewrite the history of the breed and legitimise the new creation making it THE Turkish Angora, when it most definitely is not.
It seems that the scientists found genuine Turkish Angoras difficult to group and classify because they failed to fit in with their preconceived ideas of what the Turkish Angora should be, namely, the American version of the real thing.
A DNA sample from an Ankara Zoo cat named Minos, numbered 9575 in the 2012 Turkish Cat Genetics Study by L Lyons, et al, was found to be 74% pure Turkish Angora (Ankara kedisi) but obfuscated as a Cyprus Group cat. Unintelligibly, Lyons stated that this cat was difficult to group “because it has significant markers from several breeds”, but fails to explain why other cats some with less than 2% of the same Ankara kedisi marker were placed squarely in the Turkish Angora group. The answer is very simple. The Ankara kedisi marker do not correspond to her assumption that the American “Angora” fabrication is the legitimate Angora from the Zoo and cats with this marker were conveniently shunted into the Cyprus group. Other samples from the Ankara Zoo were likewise excluded as well as many cats from Turkey and Cyprus with very a high Ankara kedisi identification. You can read about them and an overall critique of this seriously flawed study on Sarah Hartwell’s site.
In the Lyons study under the heading “Materials and Methods”, the scientists write:
“…We obtained DNA samples of most breeds at cat shows and by request from cat owners in the United States. Korat, Turkish Angora, Turkish Van, and Siberian samples were acquired from the United States and Europe because these breeds have the same standards between continents…”
Am I missing something? Why didn’t they obtain DNA samples from Ankara Zoo in Turkey? I would like to hear from Harvey Harrison and the Angora Cat Association in Turkey on that subject, please. The reason may be a simple one; the scientists are stupid.
This is a difficult subject made all the more difficult when science appears to work with the cat fancy (deliberately or inadvertently) rather than in a totally objective way. I have to conclude, and I think it fair to say, that the cat fancy in America and probably elsewhere have not been faithful to the authenticity of the cat breeds. The cat fancy likes to use cat breed history to promote the cat breeds, especially the so called “natural breeds” but conveniently rewrites it. This creates what I have called the cat breed mashup.
People who care about cats would like to see clarity, accuracy and fair play in respect of the cat breeds. We need to be able to understand them better. When the breeds are mashed up in this fashion it dulls our enthusiasm for the breeds. This is bad management by the associations. In the long term it will work against them. It is also very unfair to the good people of the Angora Cat Association, Turkey (ACA), who look after the real and precious Turkish Angora.
Note: This is a tricky subject. I like accuracy and fair play. If I have made a mistake please tell me and I will amend it promptly.
Notes:
- Reference: Sarah Hartwell’s Messybeast.com.
- There are very minor similarities.
ANOTHER GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY LOST BY LESLIE LYONS
I refer to the controversy over the origins of the Persian breed. Very careful and prolonged research will reveal links between the original Turkish Angora and the Persian in the early days of it’s history. If this were the case then traces of this ancestry would still show up in the DNA of even the massively out-crossed modern Persian. We have seen the deliberate misnaming of the Ankara kedisi markers as “Cyprus” in the 2012 Turkish Cat Genetics Study in order to protect the integrity of the cat fancy created fake Turkish Angora, and therefore L Lyons would have had to look for the Cyprus marker in the Persians. Since she has completely left out the Ankara kedisi and Cyprus group cats in all her papers except for the unpublished 2012 study, a golden opportunity was lost. Only modern lines were reported which are quite damning enough but in so doing genetic evidence as to their ancient origins was stupidly squandered. Here is a photo of my Minos from the Ankara Zoo in her winter coat which shows where the Persian breed most probably originated.
I find that last paragraph interesting. It is another example of poor management of the cat breeds. The GCCF seems a bizarre organistion to me – very defensive and stultified. You know I asked Sarah Hartwell (who I admire too) if she would agree to do a video interview and she refused because she is a scientist governed by the Official Secrets Act, she said. She works for a government organisation. I found that interesting too. There are photos of her on her website and they are quite risque. You probably were not aware of that.
I think you guys are great. The more I know about you and the more I read what you write, the more I appreciate you.
You are a breath of fresh air. It is a pleasure to write about the Turkish Angora in a realistic way.
I feel sad that the real Turkish Angora is sidelined and parked so to speak on a back lot out of the way.
I think that when science leads us to an untruth we are lost. Science should be hard, immutable fact. It is not in the world of cats.
I don’t think the genuineness of a cat breed is a concern of the cat fancy. The cat fancy is not about truth or history or being faithful to the origin of cat breeds or cat types.
It is about a group of people who like to play around with creating what they think are good looking cats. That is it. Nothing else really matters.
Again I have to credit Sarah Hartwell’s wonderful Messybeast web site as the source of my comment. In her article on Longhaired Cats she explains that by WW2 the Angora was extinct in Britain. Turkish cats were imported into Britain during the 1950’s and 1960’s but only Van cats were bred and recognised as a breed. In 1977 a breed known as the Angora was recognised by the GCCF, but in reality the cat was a foreign longhair. In 2002 they renamed it the Oriental Longhair to avoid confusion with the original Angoras from Turkey.
The possibility of importing true Angoras from Turkey was considered. However a combination of the compulsory 6 months quarantine required in those days and the alleged scepticism of the GCCF regarding the documentary evidence provided by Ankhara Zoo put paid to any potential plans to reintroduce The Turkish Angora as a breed in the UK.
”The samples from the clinics were provided by the Turkish collaborator -who is a co-author on the paper. Likely the clinic gave them to him and then they came to me. The study is many many years old now”.
We asked:”
This statement from L Lyons provides more revealing information than is apparent at first glance. “The study is many many yeas old now”. This then suggests that there were no new samples from the Turkish collaborator for the 2012 Study. The samples from this one batch and supplier were apparently used in the 2005. 2007, and 2012 studies. Therefore the same samples were variously described as Turkish random-bred cats unrelated to the American Angora described as a Tunisian-E Mau mix in the earlier studies, but then identified as Turkish random-bred cats closely related to American Angoras in the 2012 study. This arrant nonsense gave rise to the ridiculous suggestion by Monica Lipinski that the Ankara Zoo authorities stocked the Ankara Zoo program with cats that had wandered to Turkey from Egypt and Tunisia. Later attempts to justify these contradictory results hold no water and are clearly irrational. The fact of tghe matter is that science was manipulated and laboratory samples juggled and misnamed to authenticated a fake as a genuine product.
Analysis of these studies reveals much misconduct, shabby work, and poor thinking. Only the ignorant and those with ulterior motives find them convincing and factual.