Using Wild Cat Names

I am annoyed at the use of wildcat names because we use them a lot and we abuse the cats a lot. There is a kind of symmetry in our attitude towards wildcats but it is an unhealthy symmetry.

Examples are:

• Puma (shoes)
• Jaguar (cars)
• Tiger (airline)
• Tiger (Woods)
• Bobcat (industrial machinery)
• Wildcat (numerous sports teams)
• Lion (software - Apple)
• Snow leopard (Apple software)

There are countless more examples. Today (3rd December 2011), if you Google search using Google.com for "leopard" at the top is Apple software! Second is Wikipedia on the cat. Point made.

If you search for any mainstream wildcat you will find products and cats. If you use Google.com to search the news for "wildcat" you can forget about news on the cats! All you get is American sports team news.

Naming products after cats is fine as it shows that we admire the qualities of these magnificent animals. We should treat them well in the wild. We owe that to them.

We are gradually destroying the wild cat species in the wild. We are users.