Cats: Caressing the Tiger Page #4

Under low light levels

the cat is anywhere

from six to ten times more sensitive.

That is, at a light level

where we perhaps couldn't see anything,

he still sees, not very will,

but certainly better than we do.

I suppose it might be

the difference between

a starless night and a moonlit night,

where under a starless night that

might be the way it looks to us,

but to the cat it might look

as if the moon were up.

Able to pierce the darkness with

vision at least six times more

sensitive than our own,

the night truly belongs to the cat.

The cat's earliest ancestors

probably hunted both

on the ground and in the trees.

To survive, they needed not only claws

but remarkable balance,

an aptitude all cats retain

to this day.

In keeping with its reputation,

the cat usually does land on all fours.

And scientists

have come to understand how.

Slow-motion photography

reveals that cats always

right themselves in a precise order.

The head rotates first,

based on messages

from the eyes and inner ear.

Then the spine twists

and the rear quarters align.

At the same time the cat arches

its back to reduce the force of impact.

Despite its agility,

the cat faces particular dangers

in today's modern cities.

Here, although hundreds of

feet above the ground,

the indoor cat is just as attracted

by moving prey as is any other cat.

If anything, it may be a

stir-crazy bundle of energy.

So many cats actually careen through

unscreened windows

that the phenomenon now has a name

"high-rise syndrome".

At the Animal Medical Center

in New York City,

doctors were perplexed when they found

that victims of higher falls

often had less severs injuries than

those that fell a shorter distance.

Good morning, Miss Pizano,

how are you today?

Fine, thanks.

Dr. Michael Garvey is medical director.

Hello, Harry.

Harry is recovering

from serious fractures

after falling just a few stories.

We'd been puzzled by the

high-rise syndrome for a long time

the name that we give for

cats falling out of windows.

Our clinical impression is that

cats that fall from medium-level

stories are hurt much worse than cats

that fell from even greater distances.

That seemed to defy our logic

that cats that would fall

farther would be hurt less.

So we undertook a study to examine

the records on cats

that had been admitted here

for falling out of windows.

And it actually confirmed that our

clinical impression was correct.

It seems that cats that fall

from higher stories

and have enough time to reach free-fall

like a parachutist are relaxed.

And when you experience trauma

when you're relaxed,

you will probably avoid injury.

When you experience trauma when you

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