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Heeere Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

Date Added: June 16, 2001
Last Updated: Feb. 21, 2005

The Bonsai Kitten website was designed as a joke, but the funniest thing about it is how the outrage about it has done more to keep the site alive than shut it down.

http://www.bonsaikitten.com (the images are cruel)

This is really disgusting !

To anyone who feel love or respect to any life form.

In New York, there is a Japanese man that sells "bonsai cats". Does it sound nice? Well it is NOT!

The man puts baby cats in glass bottles and feeds them through a tube. Another tube is used to clean up the fezzes and urine of the cat.

In order to the baby cat to shape up to the glass bottle, the cat is fed with chemicals to soften their bones, as well as to keep them alive as much as possible (as long as they can survive that kind of torture). The cat cannot move, walk, clean himself... He cannot do anything!

This kind of cruelty is becoming fashionable in NY, Indonesia and New Zealand. People think is fashionable to have a live mascot shaped as a bottle.

For more information about the kind of torture that cats are being submitted to, just enter this site:
(the images are cruel)

This is a petition to send to the US Animal Protection Society and to the general press, in order to prevent this kind of abuse. Please send this e-mail to anyone that loves cats or that respect life. Just add your name to the end of the list.

Use forward or copy/paste to send this as a new mail message.

If you are the 500 person to sign this petition, please send a copy of the message to and start a new page for this petition from number 1 again.

Thank you!

In late 2005, a more concise version of this call to action began circulating.

This is so terrible. A site that we were able to shut last year has returned. We have to try to shut it down again! (www.bonsaikitten.com) A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS. That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put in to little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for The rest of their lives! The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their Faces.The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The cats never get the opportunity to move. They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand. If you think you can handle it, view www.bonsaikitten.com and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens into bottles.

This petition needs 500 names, so please put yours on it! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom,then send it to everyone you know!

Though it has outraged animal-loving folks the world over since at least 2000, the Bonsai Kitten web site was designed as a joke - albeit one that many people fail to find funny. What the site suggests isn't even possible. Confining a growing animal to a certain space will not somehow force that creature to take on the shape of that space. If anyone were to really try the things suggested on BonsaiKitten.com, they would likely only succeed in killing the animal in short order, due to lack of nutrition and exercise. The images on the site, though somewhat shocking, are carefully staged. A closer review reveals that none of them actually depicts the cat completely enclosed in the odd-shaped containers - only partially inserted or posed behind them.

The site is a sick prank - one that has already gotten far more attention than it deserves. For every ounce of energy expended to get the site removed, its creators and supporters expend an equal amount to keep it going. Dozens of Bonsai Kitten mirror and tribute sites have cropped up in response to the attention the original has garnered. And, e-mail messages like the above that try to shut it down inadvertently serve as advertising. After all, would you have even known about the site, let alone visited it, had you not received the chain letter above? W

Many versions of the chain letter claim the move to shut the site down is led or supported by the Humane Society of the U.S. The truth is quite the opposite. A statement on the the Humane Society's web site acknowledges that the site is a joke (albeit, a sick one) and that efforts to shut the site down actually do more to keep it alive.

"Please do not e-mail or otherwise contact the person running the site. The negative attention he's received has fueled the posting of the site in several locations and the formation of a group of supporters."

They ask for your support in protecting all abused and neglected animals by supporting their organization, animal shelters, rescue organizations and other advocates. See the link in the reference section below for more information.

If this is not convincing enough, let's look at exactly how the chain letter seeks to accomplish its goal - through collecting signatures on a so-called petition. BreakTheChain.org recommends strongly against "signing" or forwarding any e-mail petition. To find out why, let's put it to the Seven Tests of Armchair Activism:

Expiration - FAILED - This 'petition' has been circulating since at least December, 2000. Unfortunately, it gives no idea of how long signatures will be collected (if at all). Any cause can collect enough signatures if it's allowed to go on indefinitely - that's why most officials pay little attention to undated ones.
Focus - FAILED - The petition targets the "US Animal Protection Society." Unfortunately, there's no such organization. The Humane Society of the U.S. is the closest thing, and they're not interested in an e-mail petition.
Integrity - FAILED - The Humane Society is, of course, interested in seeing the Bonsai Kitten web site shut down, but they caution that grassroots efforts like this chain letter actually do more to increase the site's popularity.
Privacy - FAILED - No e-mail petition is private. Any information you add to it (including your e-mail address) is available to anyone who receives it.
Reliability - FAILED - Since the creator of the Bonsai Kitten web site seems to benefit from the attention rather than suffer, the petition cannot be relied upon to be effective.
Sponsorship - FAILED - The e-mail address to send "signatures" to is missing from the examples posted above. When an address is provided (and various addresses have been attributed over the petition's lifespan), test messages bounce as undeliverable (not surprising, since most e-mail providers prohibit chain letters and e-petitions in their terms of service). Nobody is collecting these "signatures," so all you are doing by forwarding this message is sending more people to the site.
Validity - UNDETERMINED - Many feel the site is a joke and that taking it seriously gives it more validity than it deserves. However, others feel that jokes about animal cruelty are not funny and should be taken seriously. Whether you believe the cause to be valid depends on the school of thought to which you subscribe.

BonsaiKitten.com has already been around a lot longer than it deserves to be. Like many childish pranks, sometimes it's best just to ignore the prankster and hope they'll eventually go away. The more attention this one gets, the longer it sticks around. Please, break this chain.

References: Humane Society of the U.S.

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