News from the Natural World: Penelope the Pallas Cat is attempting to sue human paparazzi for harassment over viral photos.
The Pallas Cat is a little known small wild cat with a broad flat face and thick shaggy grey fur. It lives in Central Asia at extremely high altitudes. It is an extremely good climber and loves to make its home at elevations of up to 5,000m. They are elusive, extremely shy as well as solitary. A typical day involves hanging around in caves, sniffing for marmots in their burrows and emerging in the early evening to hunt. They are no particularly fast but rely on stealth and guile to ambush their prey. They were relatively unknown to the wider world until a shocking event changed everything.
One morning Penelope had been minding her own business. As she walked out of her cave for her morning stretch she was greeted by a bright blinding flash that hurt her eyes. In front of her stood a huge mob of Paparazzi, flashing their cameras and clicking away. She ran back into her cave absolutely terrified. The next day she awoke to horrific news as her worst fears had materialised. Penelope had gone viral.
Pallas Cat photo goes viral
Penelope and the entire Pallas Cat community was absolutely livid. The photo showed her in an incredibly unflattering light. The human species had taken to the image with agusto, “how cute” they cried, “look how crumpy it looks”. People began to share the photo all over the world, they liked it, commented on it and mocked the Pallas Cat. Penelope was furious. That evening she hit the local Pallas Cat bar and had one too many drinks, at such a high altitude they had a really strong effect. She stumbled out of her cave and was again struck by a blinding white flash and the Paparazzi cried out her name and took more photos.
Penelope again was furious, “It was the morning after a big night out. Anyone would look bad! You bloody Paparazzi just wait for the moment when I look my worst!”. The human photographers were incredulous and screamed out at Penelope, hadn’t she heard of the tabloids? hadn’t she heard of The Sun! The photos continued to go viral all over the world. Ultimately the Pallas Cats were devastated. This new found fame wasn’t benefitting them at all. Despite humans everywhere saying how cute they were nothing was actually helping them. Poor Penelope woke up every morning and harassed by the paparazzi, finally she had had enough. In addition the photos had a devastating effect by making the Pallas Cat more popular.