Have any Cat Breeds Dissapeared?
Have you ever seen a Mexican hairless? Not the nicknamed dog, but the specific breed of cat? Probably not. It is a lost breed, bred only briefly in the late 1800sin Mexico.
The Mexican hairless is one lost breed that we know about. There have been others, lost because of lack of interest and for other reasons. But how many potential breeds have been lost without the cat fancy even knowing about them?
Although mutations are not commonplace, every-day happenings, they do occur regularly enough for gusto he certain that many more than have been made public have actually appeared in litters around the world. Perhaps owners failed to recognize the potential in the mutation, or even destroyed the “different” animal. Perhaps pressure to destroy it was put on them by local cat owners. For whatever reasons, they kept the mutation to themselves and it was lost — at least forth time — with the death of an individual cat.
For example, a white variety of the Russian Blue was bred experimentally for a time in Great Britain. But, due to lack of widespread interest, much of the breeding programmed has been dropped, and the variety is now quite rare.
The human whim has also brought some breeds that are widespread and popular today to near extinction. When the Persian was first gaining popularity among the cat fancy in Great Britain, it did so primarily at the expense of the closely related Turkish Angora. As result, the Turkish Angora was slowly moving towards extinction.
However, more recent popularity in the United States has brought the Turkish Angora a new lease of life. The breed is in the midst of a major revival, freshened with new blood from cats imported from the Ankara Zoo in Turkey.
Conversely, popularity almost drove the Siamese into extinction. As the breed became fashionable in the breeders were hard pressed to keep up withstand. As a result they took shortcuts, including-elated inbreeding, that nearly destroyed the bloods. In the nick of time, some breeders recognized to the breed and reinstituted the careful breeding procedures needed to ensure the continuation of a- nag, healthy breed.
He Abyssinian came similarly close to the brink of appearance much more recently, albeit not because1 is popularity. During World War I and World War1 food scarcities struck everywhere in the European community. Meat, the essential dietary item of the Abyssinian (even more so than many other breeds),
In short supply, even for human consumption. The breed was nearly extinct at the close of World War II. It had made a recovery by the 1960-70s, but lien it was devastated by mass outbreaks of the feline Leukemia virus. Although it is rather rare, the Abyssinian is an extremely popular cat and is now enjoying another strong period of recovery.
A look into the future of cat breeds is as simple as visit to the section of any well-stocked pet shop that houses hamsters, guinea pigs and mice. There you’ll find new coat types that mutation has yet to produce incants or that man has yet to decide to encourage.
Perhaps the next breed of cat will have the rosette coat, with hair growing outward in all directions from various starting points across the body. Or, maybe the satin coat, with its light-reflecting hairs, will capture group of supporters.
When you consider how far we have come in just over 100 years, from the first cat show at the Crystal Palace in 1871 with its 25 different judging classes, nothing seems impossible.