Myanmar’s Burmese Cat Sanctuary Now Boasts Forty Heritage-Saving Kitties

File this one under ‘cutest conservation efforts of all time’.

Attempting to celebrate Myanmar’s culture while avoiding its harrowing past, The Age reports Yin Myo Su’s drive to re-establish the presence of Burmese cats in the Asian nation now has over forty purebred cats to its name.
In the same way that Foster’s is world-renowned as the Australian beer, apparently Myanmar – formerly Burma – has become so far removed from the felines that locals don’t even recognise the cat’s history.  
After being approached by foreign conservationists, Yin Myo Su took it upon herself to launch the project; starting with seven cats – four of which were sourced right here in Oz – the population of purebreds has grown exponentially.
What’s more, in an absolute gift to internet users worldwide, one of the cats has its own Twitter account.
Bless his grumpy little heart.


It’s proving to be an interesting time for the human inhabitants of Myanmar right now too, with the country heading to the polls today for its first ‘openly contested’ elections in quarter of a century. 

Nobel Peace Prize winner and national icon Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are strongly tipped to win, but the cats themselves may not have made a great impression on the leader; Yin Myo Su described an attempt to gift her a Burmese cat being rudely interrupted by Ms. Suu Kyi’s “possessive” dog chasing the poor thing, as dogs are wont to do.

The plan now is to gift kittens to locals, who will be able to continue the breed’s conservation outside of the facility. Of course, if that fails, we could probably cat-sit a few more down here, too.
Story via The Age. 
Image via Twitter.

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