Courageous Little Tigger Chases Off a Black Bear in North Vancouver but It Was Irresponsible for His Owners to Have Placed His Life in Such Grave Peril

Tigger Squares Off with a Black Bear Who Had Ventured onto His Turf

 

"The bear was walking toward my cat. My cat was walking toward the bear."

-- Gavin Sturrock

Cats and bears are a very bad mix but yet some owners stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that frightening reality. For example, in North Vancouver, a town of fifty-eight-thousand residents located approximately ten kilometers from Vancouver on the opposite side of Burrard Inlet, Gavin and Cameron Sturrock have insanely placed the life of their two-year-old Bengal, Tigger, in imminent jeopardy by irresponsibly allowing him to tangle with a black bear.

Even worse, on June 21st they stood idly by and did absolutely nothing in order to protect him when a black bear strayed onto their property. "It took me some time to notice my cat. I looked to the right and I saw my cat just standing there facing off against the bear," Gavin later disclosed to CTV News of Vancouver on June 27th (" 'You Think I Could Do That to a Bear?' British Columbia Brothers Awed by Pet Cat after Caught-on-Camera Face-Off.") "The bear was walking toward my cat. My cat was walking toward the bear."

He first attempted to call off Tigger but that did not work. "He didn't listen to me, obviously," he told CTV News.

He next reportedly tried to reason with him by arguing that he was overmatched and surely would be killed. After that he threw in the towel on Tigger and commenced filming the encounter on his mobile telephone, the video of which he later posted on TikTok.

It thus seems that he was determined to have gotten something out of the incident even though only a moral degenerate would be willing to so readily sacrifice the life of his cat in exchange for a moment's worth of notoriety on the Internet. He is, however, far from being an isolated case.

For instance, Clare Smith and Iain Simpon of Quarrington in Lincolnshire apparently do not have any compunction about allowing their cat, Archie, to sleep in the A15 so long as they are able to electronically track his movements. (See Cat Defender post of March 29, 2017 entitled "Archie Is Allowed to Sleep Smack-Dab in the Middle of a Busy Thoroughfare by His Derelict Owners Who Are Content with Merely Tracking His Movements by Satellite.")

Mercifully, matters never got quite that desperate with Tigger in that his life ultimately was spared, not by Sturrock's obduracy, but rather the bruin's magnanimity. "Tigger, he stood his ground and then the bear stepped back," Sturrock continued to CTV News. "And the bear turned around, did a full one-hundred-eighty (degrees) and Tigger chased after him."

Although Tigger had more than abundantly demonstrated his foolhardiness by venturing anywhere near the bear in the first place, he belatedly demonstrated that he was endowed with at least a modicum of bon sens by electing not to have followed it into the woods and that in itself would tend to indicate that he is an extremely territorial cat who does not take kindly to interlopers on his turf.

Tigger Chased after the Bear but It Chose Not to Do Battle

Gavin then wisely gathered him up and took him inside to safety. He afterwards lamely attempted to excuse his abandonment of Tigger in his hour of greatest need to being yellow.

"Imagine opening your door, taking a few steps outside and seeing a bear like right in front of you," he explained to CTV News. "That's exactly what happened to me."

From there he went on to publicly admit that he had cowered behind Tigger's tail. "He protected me. You think I could do that to a bear?" he rationalized to CTV News. "I'm bigger, I'm human, but I don't think I could. It's crazy."

Of course not. The human-all-too-human way is to say the hell with the cat and to think only of saving one's own rotten hide. That kind of thinking and behavior exposes him as being little more than a rank coward who hid behind his cat. 

The behavior of his equally cowardly brother was every bit as reprehensible. "I was so scared, I thought Tigger would get hurt, but he managed to stand his ground and chase the bear off," Cameron confessed to CTV News. "I've never been that scared in my life."

Quite obviously, real men are difficult to find north of the border, unless cowardly mass murderers armed to the teeth with high-powered rifles are considered to fit that bill. (See Cat Defender post of January 21, 2018 entitled "Steve Ecklund's Savage Killing and Butchering of a Cougar and Vainglorious Gloating, Strutting, and Preening Are Resoundingly Applauded by Canada's Ever Obliging Media and Complicitous Universities.") 

Moreover, the Sturrocks' assertions are utterly ridiculous in that there is absolutely nothing in press reports that would tend to indicate that either of them were in any real danger and the mere fact that Gavin hung around in order to film the incident attests to that. Even if they had been threatened they always could have retreated to the safety of either their house or their automobile.

Individuals who reside in bear country need to be prepared ahead of time for such an eventuality and the fact that the boys were caught flat-footed was their biggest faux pas. Even so, they were hardly without options.

Tigger with Gavin and Cameron Sturrock

According to CTV News, they were busily carrying out boxes to their old jalopy in preparation for an out-of-town trip to a Nerf gun war when the bruin materialized seemingly out of the blue. As best it could be determined, Nerf guns shoot foam bullets and they accordingly could have trained theirs on the bear.

Since these toy guns are known to cause serious eye injuries, they should not under any circumstances have  aimed them anywhere near the bruin's eyes. Besides, a water pistol loaded with diluted vinegar would have likely worked just as well.

Secondly, they could have attempted to distract the bear away from Tigger by making themselves look bigger, waving their arms in the air, and shouting at it. Thirdly, almost any kind of loud noisemaker would have in all likelihood scared off the intruder.

Fourthly, if either of them had spent any time working on a ranch they possibly might have been sufficiently proficient with a rope in order to have lassoed Tigger and thereby pulled him out of harm's way. The one thing that they should not have done under any circumstances was to have offered up Tigger as a sacrificial lamb to the bear. 

Lady Luck was on Tigger's side on this occasion in that the bear was only looking for sustenance and therefore shied away from a confrontation. He hit the jackpot a second time in that the bruin was not accompanied by cubs; if that had been the case, the outcome easily could have been altogether different.

Back on June 4, 2006, a declawed, ten-year-old, orange and white tom named Jack from the Shady Lake section of West Milford, sixty-seven kilometers northwest of Newark in Passaic County, treed a black bear, not once, but twice in his backyard. He kept the bear out on a limb for a quarter of an hour and when it belatedly came down he promptly chased it up another tree.

Eventually, neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti alerted Jack's owner, Donna Dickey, as to what was going on and she tardily went outside and called off Jack. That in turn allowed the bear to escape into the woods and Jack, like Tigger, was possessed of enough intelligence not to have pursued it.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, the bear's gonna get him!'" Dickey later exclaimed to The Star Ledger of Newark on June 9, 2006. (See "Bear's Out on a Limb, Fleeing a Clawless Kitty.")

Tigger Does Not Tolerate Dogs on His Turf Either

It was theorized at the time that the onychechtomy that Jack had been cruelly subjected to may have contributed to his pugnacity. "He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey added to The Star Ledger. "We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear."

Nothing further was ever heard about him so it can only be hoped that he did not ultimately wind up being eaten by a bear. If against all odds this courageous and handsome tom should still be alive today, he would be a whopping twenty-six years old. (See Cat Defender post of June 19, 2006 entitled "An Irresponsible Cat Owner Allows Declawed Jack to Tangle with a Black Bear in Northern New Jersey.")

The odds are even longer that the bruin survived to even the end of the year considering that the politicians in Trenton have been allowing six-hundred or more of its mates to be mercilessly gunned down by hunters each autumn in northern New Jersey for more than twenty years. Last year's slaughter was called off by Governor Phil Murphy but it is entirely possible that the carnage could resume as early as this fall. (See nj.com, September 15, 2021, "There Will Be No New Jersey Bear Hunt This Year, Murphy Says.")

At least for the moment, however, saner minds are continuing to hold sway. "Whether we like it or not, black bears are an integral part of the state's natural heritage and a vital component of a healthy ecosystem," Assemblyman Tim Eustace, a Democrat from Bergen County, told The Star Ledger on October 18, 2016. (See "Senator Seeks to End Bear Hunts.") "The state's current policy dictating multiple hunting seasons to control the black bear populations is inhumane. For thirty years New Jersey went without hunting black bears as a control measure and with the alternative methods we can do it again."

Since as far as it is known Tigger has not been declawed, that can be ruled out as the source of his aggressiveness. Although his precise genetic makeup has not been divulged, Bengals are hybrids that are created by breeding spotted Egyptian Maus and Abyssinians with Asian Leopard Cats (Prionailures bengalensis) and as such he is a wild cat trapped inside the body of a domestic feline.

On the positive side of the ledger, they are attractive, personable, loving, intelligent, and loyal cats. On the opposite side of the equation, they are extremely territorial and overly protective of their owners and it was in all probability those two personality traits that prompted Tigger to confront the black bear.

Regardless of whether the goal of such unnatural mating experiments is the creation of Savannahs, Toygers, Asheras, Pixie-Bobs, or other newfangled combinations, the entire process is cruel and nakedly exploitative. (See Cat Defender posts of September 6, 2005, April 13, 2007, June 28, 2007, and February 19, 2008 entitled, respectively, "Savannahs: More Feline Cruelty Courtesy of the Capitalists and the Bourgeoisie," "Killing and Torturing Wild and Domestic Cats in Order to Create Toygers Is Not Going to Save Sumatran Tigers," "A Rural Alabama Man Makes a 'Killing' Forcibly Breeding Domestic Cats to Bobcats in Order to Create Pixie-Bobs," and "Asheras Are the Designer Chats du Jour Despite the Cruelties Inflicted During Their Hybridization.") 

   

Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing about such barbarism that in any way protects and elevates the status of either wild or domestic cats. (See Cat Defender post of April 13, 2006 entitled "Once Worshiped as Gods, the Maus Are Now Being Poisoned to Death by the Egyptian Authorities.")

Jack, on the ground, Trees a Black Bear

Bengals, such as Tigger, also require considerably more care and attention than do regular cats who have not been genetically manipulated. First of all, the males are known to do a considerable amount of marking indoors and both sexes suffer from chronic diarrhea.

Secondly, they are genetically predisposed to develop Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), Progressive Retinal Atrophy, and Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency. Thirdly, they are energetic cats who require a good deal of exercise. 

Fourthly, if the males are not sterilized, they tend to roam and that in turn can get them, as well as all hybrids, into considerable difficulties. Most tragically of all, a Savannah named Chum was shot dead in Detroit in 2014. (See Cat Defender post of April 19, 2014 entitled "Doomed from Conception to a Lifetime of Naked Exploitation and Destined Never to Fit In Anywhere, Chum Is Gunned Down in Cold Blood on the Violent Streets of Lawless and Uncaring Detroit.")

Also during that same year, a bobcat-mix named Rocky who was owned by Jenny Fine of Stafford Township in New Jersey was outrageously placed under house arrest by local jurist Damian G. Murray. When he once again escaped from her house, Murray stole him from her and in turn gave him to the Popcorn Park Zoo in Forked River. 

In one of the most outrageous injustices on record anywhere, Rocky has been rotting in a cage at that wretched zoo for almost eight years and in all likelihood he will die there because nobody cares. (See Cat Defender posts of April 26, 2014 and May 29, 2014 entitled, respectively, "The Opportunistic Old Hacks Who Run the Show in New Jersey Are All Set to Unjustly Condemn Rocky to a Lifetime Behind Bars for, Basically, Daring to So Much as Breathe" and "The Odds Were All Against Him and His Enemies Were Well-Financed and Unscrupulous but Rocky Nonetheless Prevails in a Stafford Courtroom," plus USA Today, December 19, 2014, "Big Cat Escape Artist Rocky Gets Permanent Home at Zoo.")

A Pixie-Bob named Benny, also from New Jersey, once got into trouble for accidentally taking a nibble out of Santa.  (See Cat Defender post of December 19, 2008 entitled "Regardless of Whether He Is a Pixie-Bob or a Bobcat, It Is Going to Be a Blue Christmas for Benny after He Inadvertently Bites Santa Claus.")

Some hybrids have been known to run away from home while others make appealing targets for thieves. Still others are dumped at shelters once their owners find out just how much care that they require and that in turn has necessitated the establishment of rescue groups in order to take care exclusively of unwanted designer cats. (See Cat Defender post of February 20, 2008 entitled "Exotic and Hybrid Cats, Perennial Objects of Exploitation and Abuse, Are Now Being Mutilated, Abandoned, and Stolen.")

Clearly, caring for a cat like Tigger is pretty much a full-time job. Furthermore, his aggression is by no means confined to black bears, who are quite capable of killing any cat with one swipe of a paw, but rather it also extends to canines.

Unleashed dogs are, apparently, a major problem in the Sturrocks' neighborhood and they sometimes invade their property and that it turn provokes Tigger. They therefore are an even bigger threat to Tigger's life and continued well-being than the bears in that it is rare for the latter to kill a cat but it is sickeningly commonplace for the former, usually at the behest of their owners, to do so. (See Cat Defender posts of March 4, 2010, October 28, 2013, July 18, 2015, September 22, 2019, July 1, 2021, October 22, 2021, October 31, 2021, and April 15, 2022 entitled, respectively, "Seven-Month-Old Bailey Is Fed to a Lurcher by a Group of Sadistic Teens in Search of Cheap Thrills in Northern Ireland," "Slow to Recuperate from Life-Threatening Injuries Sustained in a Savage Mauling by an Unleashed Dog, Stubbs Announces His Intention to Step Down as Mayor of Talkeetna," "A Blackpudlian Thrill Seeker Who Sicced Her Pit Bull on Regi and Then Laughed Off Her Fat Ass as He Tore Him Apart Receives a Customary Clean Bill of Health from the Courts," "Sparkle Is Killed on the Front Stoop of Her House by an Unleashed Dog in the Latest of Centuries-Old Attacks That Bear the Unmistakable Imprimatur of the House of Commons," "Fourteen-Year-Old Mini is Ripped to Shreds by a Pack of Vicious Hounds but Those Responsible Never Will Be Punished Because the Limeys Value the 'Unspeakable in Full Pursuit of the Uneatable' Far More Than They Do Her Right to Live," "Condemned to Die as Dog Bait, Courageous Buzz Perseveres Just Long Enough Until He Is Able to Not Only Regain His Freedom but also to Find His Pot of Gold at the Rainbow's End," "The Arrest of a Dogfighter in Ayr Provides a Rare Glimpse into the Utterly Despicable Abuse That Bait Cats Are Subjected to but the Scottish SPCA Still Stubbornly Persists in Treating Them as Expendable Nonentities," and "Buddy Is Mauled Nearly to Death on His Own Porch by Vicious Dogs Sicced on Him by a Pair of Vile Black Kids in Philadelphia," and, the Daily Mail, April 3, 2015, "Shocking Moment Three-Legged Cat Was Mauled to Death by Two Passing Dogs as It Lay in Its Front Garden.") 

 Jack and His Derring-Do Live on, at Least in Cyberspace

As if bears and dogs were not sufficient in order to keep the Sturrocks tossing and turning each night, North Vancouver is additionally coyote country and they are even more prolific killers of cats than dogs. (See Cat Defender posts of August 28, 2007, December 4, 2007, September 15, 2011, and September 17, 2011 entitled, respectively, "TNR Programs, Domestic Cats, Dogs, and Humans Are Imperiled by Wildlife Proponents' Use and Abuse of Coyotes and Fishers," "A Grieving Widow Risks Her Life in Order to Save Cosmo from the Jaws of a Hungry Coyote in Thousand Oaks," "Ravenous Coyotes, Cat-Haters, and Old Man Winter All Want Her Dead, Buried, and Gone but Brave Little Half Mask Is Defying All the Odds," and "Coyotes, Swimming from Connecticut, Are Blamed for Killing Twenty Cats on Remote and Exclusive Fishers Island," plus KHOU-TV of Houston, June 10, 2022, "Coyote Versus Cat: Fierce Feline Narrowly Escapes Its Enemy in Surfside Showdown.")

 

Even when coyotes are not actually killing cats, traps set out by bounty hunters in order to catch them snare and cripple unintended felines. (See Cat Defender post of July 19, 2020 entitled "Beautiful Bobby Is Maimed by a Leghold Trap That Not Only Was Intended for a Coyote but Also Illegally Set Within the City Limits of St. George.")

Considering the myriad of dangers that the Sturrock brothers have knowingly exposed Tigger to, it is a minor miracle that he is still alive. Even under optimal circumstances, the life expectancy of a Bengal is only ten to twelve years and he most definitely will not be around anywhere near that long unless they promptly mend their negligent ways and start taking better care of him. Of particular concern is the issue of who watches out for his safety when they are away from home and out of town.

As is its custom, CTV News and the remainder of the capitalistic media are egging the brothers in the opposite direction but no one except a bloody fool would ever take anything that any of them have to say about feline welfare as the gospel truth. After all, they could care less if a million cats had to die so long as they got a story out of the slaughter.

The first order of business for the Sturrocks accordingly should be to install an electrified fence around their entire property. Since they likely paid in the neighborhood of between US$1,500 to US$3,000 for Tigger as a kitten, they quite obviously have disposable income and therefore the cost of the fencing should not amount to much more than a drop in the proverbial bucket for them.

Secondly, they need to not only purchase tamper-proof garbage cans but also to avoid leaving out any food that could attract bears. It is almost superfluous to point out but any fruit-bearing trees, vines, and shrubs also need to be enclosed within the perimeter of the fence.

Since no security system is foolproof, motion-detector alarms and motion-activated sprinklers are two additional tools worth considering. Some individuals also have reported success in deterring bears with Pine-sol,® Lysol,® ammonia, and apple cider vinegar.

For their own protection, the lads might want to look into arming themselves with pepper spray, tear gas, and flares. An electrified fence, however, would be better for both them and, especially, Tigger.

Overall, the picture of them that emerges is that they could care less whether he lives or not but that most assuredly has not always been the case. For instance, shortly after he came home from the breeder he was struck down by the almost always one-hundred per cent fatal Feline infectious Peritonitis (FIP).

The Lovely but Tragically Unlucky Lacey on August 14, 2016

Of all the maladies that plague felines, FIP is arguably the nastiest and most heartbreaking. "It breaks my heart seeing her (and) knowing she is dying slowly inside having her immune system attacked," Sarah Addley of Foulness Island, off the coast of Essex, tearfully said of her kitten, Lacey, in an interview with the Echo of Basildon in Essex on August 11, 2016. (See "Fundraising Campaign to Help Dying Kitten.") "She's a strong Maine Coon fighter who means everything to me. I just want her to have a chance in life and to get back to being a lively kitty."

 

Toward the realization of that noble goal, she spent practically every penny that she had and she even went so far as to procure a special license that allowed her to import the experimental drug Polyprenyl Immunostimulant (PI) from Sass and Sass of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Unfortunately, that drug is only effective in treating the noneffusive, or dry, form of FIP and Lacey had the wet, or effusive, variety.

Addley did everything in her power to save Lacey but it was all to no avail and she died on August 17, 2016 shortly before she would have celebrated her first birthday. (See Cat Defender post of September 15, 2016 entitled "Lacey and Her Devoted Owner Wage a Lonely, Terrifying, and Grossly Underfunded Battle Against Feline Infectious Peritonitis but in the End the Deadly Malady Refused to Yield.")

 

The Sturrock brothers had considerably better success with Tigger because they were able to have gotten their hands on an unidentified drug that cured him. If he were suffering from the dry form of FIP that drug could have been PI.

More than likely, however, it was GS-441524 manufactured by Gilead Sciences of Foster City, California, but better known to most Americans as remdesivir, an antiviral that is used to treat COVID-19. It currently is not licensed for sale to cat owners in the United States and therefore can only be obtained on the Chinese black market.

It additionally is very expensive with a twelve-week regimen of it costing US$10,000 or more. (See The Atlantic, May 8, 2020, "A Much-Hyped COVID-19 Drug Is Almost Identical to a Black-Market Cat Cure" and the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, January 15, 2020, "FIP Drugs Continue to Show Promise, while Being Sold on Black Market.")

"He was sick for a long time but then he got better, he actually overcame it," Cameron said of Tigger in his interview with CTV News. "He went from being super-sick to becoming a full-on bear chaser."

He and his brother are therefore deserving of nothing but the highest possible praise for their willingness to have stood by Tigger during his life and death struggle with FIP. That is especially the case considering that it would have been so easy for them to have either allowed him to die or to have returned him to the breeder who surely would have killed him off upon arrival.

Nevertheless, Tigger's penchant for scrapping with bears and dogs should not be either praised or condoned by them. Worst of all, both activities are destined to, sooner or later, lead to his savage and premature death and they have invested too much love, care, and expense in him in order to allow things to end that way.

Photos: Gavin and Cameron Sturrock (Tigger with the bear and a dog), CTV News (Tigger with the brothers), Suzanne Giovanetti (Jack with a treed black bear and by himself), and the Echo (Lacey).