This is Ferdinand (or Ferdi), a much-loved family pet.  On the evening of 30th December 2010 Ferdinand went out of the house and didn’t return. See Ferdinand’s story at Justice for Ferdinand (www.justiceforferdinand.co.uk).

Here is the picture of Ferdinand’s body, as it was found. [Warning: This picture is very distressing.] It cannot be conclusively proved but (thankfully, for small mercies), many of his wounds appear to have been post-mortem. The Justice for Ferdinand website explains the full (and horrific) extent of his injuries.

His owner has since been fighting to get a full investigation done into his death and mutilation. It is probably best to explain in her own words (from her webpage):

“Ferdinand’s death and mutilation has not been investigated by any authorities because it can’t be proved that the person who mutilated his body also caused his death. The Greater Manchester Police Force do not recognise the mutilation of a pet after death as an offence (not even criminal damage), although forces in other parts of the country see this differently. We now have a petition set up demanding that these sorts of cases are consistently dealt with as an offence throughout the UK.”

The petition, which at the time of posting, has had almost 1200 signatures, can be found here. I hope you won’t mind sparing a minute to sign it, in honour of the memory of this beautiful innocent cat. Justice for Ferdinand also has a Facebook page, which at the time of writing this, has almost 1700 supporters. There has been news coverage of the matter as well.

The lady below gives a brief explanation too in case you’re interested:

The reason these gentle foragers are already endangered and are dying in gruesome ways- directly as well as indirectly- at human hands- is deforestation of their natural habitat, and of course, the illegal pet trade, bounties being set on their heads, and people killing them to eat them. 

The pictures in the links below are upsetting. But they are part of the reality.

•  This orangutan in East Borneo died after he was tied to a post. He was tied to it with a rope round his neck in December 2010. He died in February 2011, just a few days before this blog post. Look at his sad eyes as he sits there as if he is nothing, as if he is just a piece of rubbish discarded to die.
• This baby orangutan in Indonesia lost his mother to a severe beating. The pitiful thing is how he clings to her half-dead (dead?) body. Another tiny baby orangutan huddles in a cardboard box- his mother was beaten to death with iron rods and hacked with machetes in order to kidnap him.
• Rescue teams have found orang utans beaten unconcious and buried alive, butchered with machetes, bludgeoned to death with iron bars and wooden planks, and doused with petrol and burnt alive.
• Each day, the killing continues.

© Tbachner via Wikimedia Commons

What can you do? So please, if you can do something- a fundraiser, a charity walk or run, or can sponsor an animal, anything, please consider a conservation charity or an orangutan rescue. Here are a few organisations doing a fantastic job. Oh, and please be alive to the dangers of palm oil.

• The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, which has done remarkable work for rainforest regeneration.  If you do one thing today, please watch Willie Smits‘ brilliant speech on reforestation and working with the local community to ensure that they benefit from and are invested in the reforestation. You can follow this modern-day hero on Twitter at @williesmits and on Facebook.
• The Orangutan Land Trust. You can watch the equally heroic and inspiring  Lone Drøscher Nielsen at the Youtube page here and follow her here on Twitter at @Orangutanland.
• Orangutan Outreach.
• Make an orangutan’s day! Adopt an orangutan at Primates Helping Primates.
• The WSPA Orangutan Rescue.

And here, in a shameless attempt to tug at your heartstrings, are some terribly cute orangutan babies. I would say 1:50 minutes in is the cutest scene, but that’s not true because the rest of it is equally cute.

© FirstScienceTV

And here, finally, is the completed collage where he finds himself in company, and what’s more, in the presence of food. Very glad to have finished this, considering this has been waiting to be completed for more than a year now!

"Ernie had a sneaking suspicion that the best ferns were being snapped up on the sly right under his nose."

Click to see the picture in greater detail.

And a lovely pork Mooli at Mooli’s in Soho with some delish mango lassi on the side.

 I was on the phone. I hung up immediately to take a picture. Judging by this picture, the pot of gold should be somewhere directly behind Madame Tussaud’s, but we won’t put too fine a point on it.



And to kickstart 2011, I’m going to do a series of posts on my favourite city. Which is to say, there will be a lot of pictures taken when I’ve been out and about. When I can identify where I’ve been, I’ll caption it.

Kicking off with the unlikely Canary Wharf area then!

“The tree shafted Fred by letting its fruit fall for the squirrels”.

(Please note that Fred’s abuse of choice is “Cats!” as opposed to “Rats!” Though given that he’s moaning about squirrels, ‘rats’ might have been more appropriate.)

At the risk of having mortally offended people out there, isn’t the resemblance uncanny?

That said, I would love to know from a more enlightened soul what this actually is.