When I was in grade school I used to send emails to biologists and zoologists asking them questions to get answers to include in school projects I was working on, and would cry when they did not respond because I thought I was stupid for thinking that some random kid would ever be deserving of a response from someone who does something as smart and cool and important as *checks notes* studies frog fungus.
Now, at 29, I’m lowkey having a panic attack because my academic email is filled with middle schoolers wanting me to answer their questions about pygmy raccoons and I keep putting off answering them because I’m so overwhelmed with all the other raccoon stuff I have to do.
Anyway, greatest apologies to any scientist I ever emailed as a child and also an adult.
average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted
I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.
For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).
I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.
The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?
97.
Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.
And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.
Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.
Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.
Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.
Statistics on captive lions, tigers, and more helped fundraise and pass new laws. The implications are under dispute.
This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.
But thing that really gets me?
Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.
"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”
"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"
I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.
No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.
So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)
Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.
Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.
But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.
I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.
A response to the DNA identification of John Bridgens, William Orren, David Young, and Harry Peglar of the Franklin expedition.
My write-up and response to the identifications of several members of the Franklin expedition is now live on my website!
I was involved in writing the biographical sections of the papers, and was the genealogist who traced the families of the sailors, and reached out to living collateral descendants to inform them of the study and invite them to participate.
UPDATE: Survey is now closed. Thank you to all that participated!!!
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
MONSTER FUCKERS NEEDED! CUM ONE, CUM ALL!!*
Please consider taking the survey my research partner and I are conducting on monster attraction! If you've already taken the survey, thank you! May the monster of your choice sneak into your bedroom tonight for some midnight fun!! ... or just a nice cuddle session.
Please do not discuss the survey in the reblogs or comments until the survey closes on 04/04/2025. This is to decrease as much bias as possible.
* must be 18+ OR legally an adult in your state/province/country to participate.
Did Brian Epstein and Little Richard have a one night stand?
Say what you will about Philip Norman—and there's a lot to say about him—but you can't deny that he's spoken to countless Beatles insiders over the years, which has made him privy to some unprecedented private information. Consequently, when I was flipping through the picture pages of Mr. Moonlight, his most recent biography on Brian Epstein, and saw the following under a poster for a Little Richard performance managed by NEMS, I was rather flabbergasted: "Brian's poster for the Little Richard spectacular at New Brighton Tower Ballroom. Rumors of a sexual encounter between the two still linger."
Legitimately I had to do a double take. What do you mean rumors? In all my research of Brian, I'd never come across anything remotely close to a liaison with Little Richard of all people, never mind any other famous music personality (save, of course, John Lennon and even Paul McCartney). There was only one way to get answers—I decided to look into this claim myself.
First, what Norman claims happened.
The fact that Little Richard was in Europe wasn't extraordinary to begin with. A lot of his following back in America had fallen off as a result of his brief stint in religiosity, but his popularity in Europe hadn't yet waned. As a result, it was easy enough for Brian to arrange for a single performance by Richard helmed by NEMS Enterprises, which would take place on 12 October 1962. Also performing that night were the Beatles.
Per Norman, "Putting them on the same stage as one of their greatest musical heroes ended what they'd viewed as Brian's probationary period." That he'd been able to wrangle such talent as Little Richard seemed proof enough for them of Brian's adequacy. Ten days prior to the performance, "they signed a second management contract to replace the one that had included Pete Best... raising [Brian's] commission to 25 percent," a fact which was undoubtedly sweetened by the Beatles' subsequent meeting with their childhood hero.
When Little Richard arrived in Liverpool, so too did the tour's promoter, Don Arden. Apparently Brian and Arden got into a dispute before the show, which ended with Brian saying, "I'm going to telephone your office tomorrow, Mr. Arden, and after that I don't think you'll be working there anymore." Also not helping matters were the "horror stories of [Little Richard's] unreliability, his bizarre whims and fancies, his frequent refusal as an ordained minister to sing anything but hymns, and his paradoxical fondness for onstage stripteases, ignoring the audience's pleas for 'Good Golly Miss Molly' or 'Lucille.'" Clearly Brian had his work cut out for him. But as Norman somewhat wistfully notes, "That night in New Brighton, he ululated every one of his Golden Oldies with scarcely a pause."
The reasoning for this turn around was simple: as Joe Flannery recalled, "Brian seemed to be able to do anything with him. When he finished his act, something went wrong with the mic for the next act, Pete MacLaine and the Dakotas. Brian could even get [Little Richard] to walk across [the stage], nice as you please, and hand his personal microphone to Pete MacLaine."
A second Little Richard performance in Liverpool—also featuring the Beatles—took place only two weeks later, an astonishment to many, though "Joe Flannery claimed to know the reason for this seemingly inexhaustible willingness to oblige Brian and make the Beatles look good. 'Richard was gay... or, to be precise, he was everything... and he and Brian had spent the night before the Tower Ballroom show in a suite at the Adelphi Hotel.'"
Fortunately for us, despite both parties' (understandable) radio silence on the matter, Philip Norman got to investigate this matter for himself. Years later he met a "terrified" Little Richard aboard a flight with whom he felt "bonded" due to their "mutual terror" of flying.
"When the plane leveled out and his prayers subsided, I said, 'May I ask you something?'
"'Sure,' he replied. 'Anything you want.'
"'On 2 October 1962 [sic], when you appeared with the Beatles at the New Brighton Tower Ballroom, had you spent the previous night with Brian Epstein at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool?'
"I think I may have been the only person ever to reduce Little Richard to silence. Then he broke into denials almost as passionate as his prayers: 'No! No! No! No! I never even had a sandwich with Brian.'
"Knowing that, in certain circles, 'sandwich' can mean something far from Prêt à Manger [oral sex, whose usage dates as far back as Oscar Wilde and Bosie Douglas], I didn't press the point... but I still wonder."—Mr. Moonlight by Philip Norman
So that's what Norman says occurred. But what of other biographers?
The Man Who Made the Beatles by Ray Coleman makes no mention of Little Richard whatsoever. There don't seem to be any online copies of it available, so I can't check the more thorough In My Life by Debbie Geller. As far as periodicals and newspaper coverage go, the only other times Brian and Little Richard ever had their names associated was in 1966 when Little Richard was one of the many American acts performing at Brian's Saville Theatre—a move which, at the very least, points to the longevity of their working friendship.
The only other tidbits I could find on them are few and far between, and don't point to any spectacular one night stand. From The Beatles' Every Little Thing by Maxwell Mackenzie: "Little Richard said that Brian Epstein offered him fifty percent of the management contract if he could get the Beatles an American studio. He refused, not wanting to get into the management business and thinking that the band would never make it." I kind of take this with a grain of salt due to a quote Little Richard gave to Mersey Beat right after sharing the stage with the Beatles where he said "Man, those Beatles are fabulous. If I hadn't seen them I'd never have dreamed they were white. They have a real authentic Negro sound," which is a bit of an aside here but I thought was quite interesting. Anyways, Richard was known to flip flop on his beliefs, so maybe this is another instance of that, but I don't know.
Similarly, both George and John mention the 12 October performance in the Anthology book, but there's no mention of anything between Brian and Little Richard beyond Brian having set up the event.
So to make a long story short, I honestly have no idea where Norman got the idea that this is some longstanding rumor we've all been dying to see confirmed or denied? Everywhere else I look, I cannot find a single corroboration of anything Brian/Little Richard related, whether it be sexual or professional in nature (the latter being Brian's supposed "extraordinary" talent in managing Little Richard compared to others). I can't find any other place where Flannery has made these claims either. Granted, Flannery was in a romantic and occasionally sexual relationship with Brian at this point, so maybe—probably—he was privy to more information than others, but you never know. I mean, the guy didn't even bring it up in his own memoir.
Personally, I'm leaning toward this didn't happen, with the only thing lending it any kind of credence being Flannery as the source. Let me know what you guys think!
A while back, during my reading of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, I found something very curious in the Book of Gareth. It turns out that the four knights he fights, before the Red Knight of the Red Lands, are from India. This made me wonder if there were other Indian characters in Arthuriana. As such, this led me to find around ten sources ranging from the 11th century to the 15th century that mention India and also people that come from that region.
The first mention of India comes from the Welsh Arthuriana “Culhwch ac Olwen” written between the 11th and 12th century (Culhwch Ac Olwen, 2016). The text mentions it as one of Arthur’s domains:
Spoke Arthur to him: "What news do you have from the gate?"
“Two thirds of my life have come [and gone], and two thirds of your own. I was there in n Caer Se and Asse, in Sach and Salach, in Lotor and Fotor, I was there in Greater India and Lesser India…
On the other hand, in the 13th century French work “Claris et Laris”, King Geremie of India is an ally of Emperor Thereus of Rome against King Arthur (Pierreville, 2008). Similarly, India is mentioned in the 15th century works “Alliterative Morte Arthure” and Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” as having sided against Arthur as well (Gardner, 1971; Malory, 2017). Moreover, in the 13th century works “Perceval” written by Chretien de Troyes and it’s Second Continuation written by Wauchier de Denain, India is mentioned as the origin of several artifacts, as well as its king called Porus (De Troyes, 2018).
Furthermore, the 13th century Vulgate Merlin mentions that King Lac of Great India sent his seneschal, Minoras, with 7.000 troops to support King Arthur in battle (Pickens, 1993). Contemporary works to the Vulgate Merlin, such as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival” and Der Pleier’s “Tandareis und Flordibel”, also mention sovereigns that come from India as well (Von Eschenbach, 2020; Pleier, 2020).
For instance, Von Eschenbach’s work mentions that Sir Parzival’s half-brother, Feiferiz, was the husband of Queen Secundille of Tribalilot (also known as India). Additionally, the queen sent Cundrie and her brother Malcreatiure to King Anfortas as his servants. Both siblings resided near the river Ganges and they came from a people who had boar-like features. Interestingly, Cundrie later becomes a Grail Maiden. Later on in the narrative, queen Secundille dies of a broken heart after Feiferiz chooses to become a Christian in order to see the Holy Grail and marry someone else (Von Eschenbach, 2020).
Whereas, Der Pleier’s work narrates that a young lady comes to King Arthur’s court at Whitsuntide Feast and makes him swear that he’ll kill anyone that tries to persuade her to give him her love and convince her to be his wife since she believes she won’t fall in love. Afterwards, the young lady proceeds to introduce herself as Princess Flordibel of India who was sent by her parents to the king’s court to learn the customs of the land. She then becomes Queen Guinevere’s lady in waiting. A few years later, she falls in love with Guinevere’s cousin, Tandareis, which then leads to then running away together and Arthur going after them, having assumed that Tandareis kidnapped her (Pleier, 2020).
Subsequently, the Irish Arthurian work “Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil”, written between the 14th and 15th centuries, tells the story of Prince Alastrann of India, who was turned into a dog, alongside his four brothers, by his stepmother in order to secure the throne for his half-brother, the Knight of the Lantern. The prince becomes the sole survivor after his siblings are hunted down by his stepmother’s father. He then travels to King Arthur’s court to ask for help so that he can return back to normal and also gain his kingdom back. Sir Gawain is the one that helps him in his quest (Macalister, 1908).
In addition, Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” mentions in the Book of Gareth that Sir Parsaunte (the Indigo Knight) and his siblings, Sir Perarde (the Black Knight), Sir Pertholope (the Green Knight) and Sir Perymones (the Red Knight) are all from India. Three of the four brothers swear honour and fealty to Gareth after their defeat. Moreover, Sir Parsaunte is the father of a daughter (Malory, 2017).
Even more, the mid 17th century Irish work “Eachtra Mhelóra agus Orlando” remarks that King Arthur’s daughter Melora and her squire, Levander, go to the kingdom of Narsinga in western India to retrieve a carbuncle of the daughter of the king of that country as part of the quest to rescue Melora’s love interest, Orlando. Melora and Levander kidnap the King and his daughter, Verona, but later on end up striking a deal in exchange for the carbuncle. The story ends with Melora rescuing Orlando, getting married to one another and Verona and Levander marrying as well (Hartnett, 1973).
Taken together, it can be thus concluded that there are a total of twenty-two Indian characters across the span of these ten sources that have been discussed. It is plausible that there are more in Arthurian literature. However, it is not possible to know due to the fact that a lot of Arthurian literature are in their original language without any English translations.
References
Culhwch ac Olwen: A translation of the oldest Arthurian tale (W. Parker, Trans.). (2016). Culhwch and Olwen Translation. https://web.archive.org/web/20240121222642/https://www.culhwch.info/
De Troyes, C. (2018). The complete story of the Grail: Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval and Its Continuations (N. Bryant, Trans.). D. S. Brewer.
Gardner, J. (1971). The Alliterative Morte Arthure. In The Alliterative Morte Arthure, The Owl and the Nightingale, and Five Other Middle English Poems in Modernized Versio (pp. 3–113). Southern Illinois University Press.
Hartnett, C. P. (1973). Irish Arthurian Literature [PhD dissertation]. New York University.
Macalister, R. a. S. (Ed.). (1908). Eachtra An Mhadra Mhaoil, Eachtra Mhasaoimh-An-Iolair. The story of the crop-eared dog, The story of Eagle-boy: Two Irish Arthurian romances (R. A. S. Macalister, Trans.). Irish Texts Society.
Malory, T. (2017). Le morte Darthur: The Original Text Edited from the Winchester Manuscript and Caxton’s Morte Darthur (P. J. C. Field, Ed.). Boydell & Brewer.
Pickens, R. T. (1993). The Story of Merlin. In N. J. Lacy (Ed.), Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation (Vol. 1, pp. 165–424). Garland Publishing Inc.
Pierreville, C. (2008). Claris et Laris. Honoré Champion Editeur.
Pleier, D. (2020). The Pleier’s Arthurian Romances: Garel of the Blooming Valley, Tandareis and Floribel, Meleranz. Routledge.
Von Eschenbach, W. (2020). Parzival (A. S. Kline, Trans.). Poetry in Translation. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Parzivalhome.php
The ration biscuit takes various forms, some of which are small and palatable, but the type most frequently met with in Gallipoli was large and square, possessing the appearance of a dog biscuit and the consistency of a rock. It was no doubt of excellent nutritive quality, but, unfortunately, no ordinary pair of teeth was able to cope with it.
Some spread jam upon it, and then licked the surface, thereby absorbing a few crumbs; others soaked it in tea (when there was any); while a few pounded it between two stones, and found that the result did not make bad porridge.
- Major Bryan Cooper
The universally loathed hardtack. The Australian War Memorial actually has a lovely little collection of hardtack dating back to the Boer War. There's also some excellent hardtack art.
