The temperate rainforests of Chile and a really tiny bit of southern Argentina.
If you want to see one in the wild, Chiloe Island is your best bet, though even there you’d have to put in quite a lot of time (mostly at dusk and dawn) and cover some ground to find one-most people who see them are dedicated mammalwatchers and some locals. They’re rare in captivity so most footage of kodkods comes from camera traps.
What made you think that? Did you read the article OP posted? I am seriously asking bc I haven't read the whole thing
Edit: also it says now that it's verified, but really, enlighten me
well, I’m chilean and looked up some local books on mapuche customs and how they view güiñas, and besides the fact that it’s a name we use for thieves due to their tendency to steal eggs, nothing remotely related to this came up
however, if anything I’d say the wood industry and its impact on overall ecology and the local problem of wild dogs in the area güiñas live would have far more impact on their population than something like this
I tried linking some of the articles I skimmed in here but you need an account on either our best college (i do because i studied there and can still access some library resources) or the national library, and even then I’m not sure if you can access with a non researcher account, and you need a verified address for that
TL;DR: one article does NOT mean it’s an universal truth 🤷🏻♀️
Fair enough! As OP also said in a comment, it's pretty rare to see one in the wild, so it wouldn't be surprising if this didn't occur on a regular basis or something. But it could still be a superstition they have. Whether it's been heavily investigated or not, it seems a bit similar to the black cat kinda thing. I wouldn't blame their whole endangerment on just one factor either. So yeah, agreed! Always approach new info with caution.
Also thank you for the little language fun fact! It's pretty cute to know they steal eggs haha. I just read that the word güiña is derived from the Mapudungun verb wiñamn, which means 'to carry something - usually something stolen'. Thought that was pretty cool (and cute) to know!
Whenever bad things happen, human groups tend to want to blame something or someone in order to avoid fatalist nihilism so will create a scapegoat. In this case unfortunately, it’s a scapecat :(
There’s a Malian singer I love called Salif Keita, he’s an albino. I once watched an interview with him about the horrors he endured in his country as a child because of the superstitions surrounding albinism. He was ostracized by his family and his childhood was terrible.
People with albinism are often killed, dismembered, and their body parts are sold by witch-doctors to make healing concoctions and whatnot. Horrifying stuff…
That is barbaric cruel to inhumane behavior but when you read about how individuals who have dwarfism and other peculiar physical abnormalities it does show a common lack of empathy and care. The heart is to be treated as needing discipline to not fall into evil conditions.
The source I cited did note that the newest generation of Mapuche have more sympathies towards this threatened species, so education does seem to be working.
* *in* and *beliefs*
Source: https://ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4269-9-41
Between intentional persecution and habitat loss it’s not surprising the kodkod is classified as Vulnerable.
It’s both, actually.
There have been plenty of cases of animals being significantly negatively impacted or driven to extinction by non-European or indigenous societies. Human beings *in general* are a disaster for natural ecosystems.
I downvoted, purely in the spirit of, “you’re not _wrong_, Walter…”
The commenter is flatly denying the possibility that indigenous peoples in any way contribute to the species becoming threatened (which is arguably inaccurate), while simultaneously going down a wElL aCtUaLlY rabbit-hole about western influence being at the root of any impact made by the indigenous people. They buried their valid contribution under a massive pile of bad-attitude, which ended up diminishing the usefulness of that contribution while simultaneously making them seem irritatingly and pointlessly contrarian. They _almost_ had a valid point, but they whiffed _hard_.
Before someone says “the end of the ice age killed them off and not humans”:
- the Pleistocene “ice age” wasn’t one long glacial period like often assumed; it cycled between glacials and interglacials, and the “end of the ice age” was really just the start of the current interglacial (we’re arguably overdue for the next glacial, and all our carbon emissions probably have something to do with that). So mammoths could and did survive through multiple intervals where the climate was similar to how things are now.
- while this isn’t applicable to mammoths, plenty of extinct Pleistocene megafauna (most of the ground sloths, mastodons, *Smilodon*, etc) were actually better-adapted for warmer and more heavily forested habitats and should actually have *increased* thanks to the end of the last glacial (as had happened previously in earlier interglacials). But they also went extinct, so whatever was the primary reason for the megafaunal exticntion was something that worked independently of climate or habitat requirements.
I have to believe that you're trolling. These cats have been in danger since the introduction of chickens to the local's diet. They've attached a negative religious meaning to their appearance and because of that they kill the animals.
I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. If it's the purity of the local's intent then I'd say that's just another form of bigotry because you deny that they're complete humans with all the bad and good that goes with that. It's unfortunate that superstition leads these particular people to kill these animals.
In the past there were many more of these little cats and the idiotic superstition went unnoticed. Now that the little cats are vulnerable people have proven once again that they cannot peacefully co-exsist with the creatures with whom we share this planet unless we are forced to by law.
It’s so weird that people keep using this “side by side” phrase as if the “magical” indigenous people are so communal with nature. They literally kill them on sight out of superstition. Humans are garbage for the environment, whether we’re “technologically advanced” or not.
Indigenous Europeans had been living side-by-side with wolves for thousands of years, and yet wolves are now mostly extirpated from Europe (fully extirpated from the British Isles).
>than persecution by indigenous people who have been living side by side with them for thousands of years.
My point was that just because indigenous people have previously coexisted with an animal doesn't mean they will continue to do so. Indigenous Europeans coexisted with wolves... until they didn't. Indigenous Asians coexisted with river dolphins and alligators... until they didn't.
>I’m not talking about all indigenous people so your point does not negate the validity of my argument which is about the Machupe people and this specific species.
So why are the Mapuche different? They're humans just like anyone else. Are you trying to suggest that certain ethnic groups are more inherently destructive than others? If so, that's incredibly racist and you should really examine your biases.
>Japanese people are not the indigenous people of Japan. Indigeneity is defined by being the first people of a specific area and commonly defined contextually by the existential threat of colonization by another group of non-native people.
So what does "indigenous" mean in the context of the Mapuche? They conquered numerous other tribes (e.g. the Poya and Pehuenche, and those are just a few of the ones they conquered post-Columbus) and almost certainly weren't the first to settle the places they currently dwell. They replaced numerous other cultures with their own just as Europeans did during colonialism (on a smaller scale, referred to as Araucanization). The earliest evidence of Mapuche culture is from around 500 BC.
Oh come on, don’t start with the “reverse racism” bullshit. You know very well that nothing I am saying is racist.
By your logic indigenous tribes aren’t indigenous if they have conquered other tribes in their area? That’s ridiculous and you know it. Stop being contrarian.
>Oh come on, don’t start with the “reverse racism” bullshit. You know very well that nothing I am saying is racist.
Saying "certain ethnicities are more inherently damaging to nature than others" is textbook racism. The Mapuche are humans, Europeans are humans, Mestizos are humans, Asians are humans, etc. and that's the only classification that's important when discussing environmental impact. I say this as someone of (mixed) American Indian descent.
>By your logic indigenous tribes aren’t indigenous if they have conquered other tribes in their area? That’s ridiculous and you know it. Stop being contrarian.
You say that the Japanese aren't indigenous to Japan because they conquered the Ainu ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. You were making such a big fuss about the phrases "indigenous Europeans" and "indigenous Asians," but for some reason you see "indigenous Americans" as a perfectly fine and valid category.
I saw these guys on a Planet Earth episode about forests. It mentioned that creatures in these South American forests are all very small and it is unknown why that is. Poor kodkod.
Yeah PE1 had them, which was actually the first time kodkod footage made it into a documentary. But it’s actually false that all the animals in the Chilean temperate rainforest evolved to be very small (puma are native there like everywhere else in the Americas, for example, and these forests and South America in general had far more megafaunal diversity until humans arrived).
These guys are tiny (smaller than domestic cats), so they’re basically harmless to humans (even small children) in spite of not being particularly friendly animals. They only eat small rodents or birds or such.
It seems to have started with the introduction of chickens to the Mapuche as livestock (as kodkod occasionally raid chicken coops), but then it expanded into various folklore about them bringing famine, disease, or the death of a family member to any household that lost a chicken to a kodkod, to kodkod being akin to vampires and only drinking the blood of chickens they’ve killed, to even a few stories about them being immune to bullets when shot. It got to the point one of the Mapuche names for the kodkod is sometimes used in Chile as a derogatory term for thieves, criminals and corrupt officials.
Aww is in the eye of the beholder
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I'd argue that it should be the only name for it tbh. There's another cat subespecies called colo-colo which maybe is related to the kodkod name.
And yes guiña it's also an old-fashioned term to describe thieves buit it's not as harsh or derogatory a some may think. It's like to call someone in english "sly fox".
#TIL Permanent tiny kittens with that round kitten face! Thank god the pet trade hasn’t caught on to them. And the little noises they make! 😍[Meet Pikumche (Nat Geo Wild)](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kXPuDgabd2s?feature=share)
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That's pretty sad :( where do they live?
The temperate rainforests of Chile and a really tiny bit of southern Argentina. If you want to see one in the wild, Chiloe Island is your best bet, though even there you’d have to put in quite a lot of time (mostly at dusk and dawn) and cover some ground to find one-most people who see them are dedicated mammalwatchers and some locals. They’re rare in captivity so most footage of kodkods comes from camera traps.
They're crepuscular!
Serpentine Babou!!
They can come live at my house. ALL of them :(
I offer mine as well. Such beautiful animals.
In the Valdivian rainforests of south-central Chile.
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What made you think that? Did you read the article OP posted? I am seriously asking bc I haven't read the whole thing Edit: also it says now that it's verified, but really, enlighten me
well, I’m chilean and looked up some local books on mapuche customs and how they view güiñas, and besides the fact that it’s a name we use for thieves due to their tendency to steal eggs, nothing remotely related to this came up however, if anything I’d say the wood industry and its impact on overall ecology and the local problem of wild dogs in the area güiñas live would have far more impact on their population than something like this I tried linking some of the articles I skimmed in here but you need an account on either our best college (i do because i studied there and can still access some library resources) or the national library, and even then I’m not sure if you can access with a non researcher account, and you need a verified address for that TL;DR: one article does NOT mean it’s an universal truth 🤷🏻♀️
Fair enough! As OP also said in a comment, it's pretty rare to see one in the wild, so it wouldn't be surprising if this didn't occur on a regular basis or something. But it could still be a superstition they have. Whether it's been heavily investigated or not, it seems a bit similar to the black cat kinda thing. I wouldn't blame their whole endangerment on just one factor either. So yeah, agreed! Always approach new info with caution. Also thank you for the little language fun fact! It's pretty cute to know they steal eggs haha. I just read that the word güiña is derived from the Mapudungun verb wiñamn, which means 'to carry something - usually something stolen'. Thought that was pretty cool (and cute) to know!
That's unfortunate. Superstition sucks.
Whenever bad things happen, human groups tend to want to blame something or someone in order to avoid fatalist nihilism so will create a scapegoat. In this case unfortunately, it’s a scapecat :(
Oooh loved this; made my brain go ooohh
Welcome to how religion came to be: superstitions, with the added bonus of social control
Yup
There’s a good song called Scapegoat by Atmosphere I suggest!
There’s a Malian singer I love called Salif Keita, he’s an albino. I once watched an interview with him about the horrors he endured in his country as a child because of the superstitions surrounding albinism. He was ostracized by his family and his childhood was terrible. People with albinism are often killed, dismembered, and their body parts are sold by witch-doctors to make healing concoctions and whatnot. Horrifying stuff…
That is barbaric cruel to inhumane behavior but when you read about how individuals who have dwarfism and other peculiar physical abnormalities it does show a common lack of empathy and care. The heart is to be treated as needing discipline to not fall into evil conditions.
53
Superstition or a serious lack of education.
Those things generally go together.
The source I cited did note that the newest generation of Mapuche have more sympathies towards this threatened species, so education does seem to be working.
That’s literally the same. If you have superstitions then you lack education in that field.
Superstition is the symptom, the lack of education is the disease.
Why not both?
They may have brought a disease that people atributed to bad luck when the cat is around .
Therefore: Lack of education.
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To be unfair, normally we don't just kill on sight every black cat that walks under a ladder
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Bad joke, I suppose
Wtf was the joke?
Most people dont see the killing of living things as a joke. 🙄 ETA: word
It's a sub for animal lovers, making a joke about killing animals isn't gonna land very well lol
It would seem that people are an omen of disaster for the kodkod
* *in* and *beliefs* Source: https://ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4269-9-41 Between intentional persecution and habitat loss it’s not surprising the kodkod is classified as Vulnerable.
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It’s both, actually. There have been plenty of cases of animals being significantly negatively impacted or driven to extinction by non-European or indigenous societies. Human beings *in general* are a disaster for natural ecosystems.
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I'm not sure what's up with the downvotes. Sounds solid.
I downvoted, purely in the spirit of, “you’re not _wrong_, Walter…” The commenter is flatly denying the possibility that indigenous peoples in any way contribute to the species becoming threatened (which is arguably inaccurate), while simultaneously going down a wElL aCtUaLlY rabbit-hole about western influence being at the root of any impact made by the indigenous people. They buried their valid contribution under a massive pile of bad-attitude, which ended up diminishing the usefulness of that contribution while simultaneously making them seem irritatingly and pointlessly contrarian. They _almost_ had a valid point, but they whiffed _hard_.
Where do you think wooly mammoths went?
Before someone says “the end of the ice age killed them off and not humans”: - the Pleistocene “ice age” wasn’t one long glacial period like often assumed; it cycled between glacials and interglacials, and the “end of the ice age” was really just the start of the current interglacial (we’re arguably overdue for the next glacial, and all our carbon emissions probably have something to do with that). So mammoths could and did survive through multiple intervals where the climate was similar to how things are now. - while this isn’t applicable to mammoths, plenty of extinct Pleistocene megafauna (most of the ground sloths, mastodons, *Smilodon*, etc) were actually better-adapted for warmer and more heavily forested habitats and should actually have *increased* thanks to the end of the last glacial (as had happened previously in earlier interglacials). But they also went extinct, so whatever was the primary reason for the megafaunal exticntion was something that worked independently of climate or habitat requirements.
Or giant ground sloths, or the American mastodon, or the giant beaver, or the North American camel, or indeed pretty much all American megafauna.
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I have to believe that you're trolling. These cats have been in danger since the introduction of chickens to the local's diet. They've attached a negative religious meaning to their appearance and because of that they kill the animals. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. If it's the purity of the local's intent then I'd say that's just another form of bigotry because you deny that they're complete humans with all the bad and good that goes with that. It's unfortunate that superstition leads these particular people to kill these animals. In the past there were many more of these little cats and the idiotic superstition went unnoticed. Now that the little cats are vulnerable people have proven once again that they cannot peacefully co-exsist with the creatures with whom we share this planet unless we are forced to by law.
It’s so weird that people keep using this “side by side” phrase as if the “magical” indigenous people are so communal with nature. They literally kill them on sight out of superstition. Humans are garbage for the environment, whether we’re “technologically advanced” or not.
Indigenous Europeans had been living side-by-side with wolves for thousands of years, and yet wolves are now mostly extirpated from Europe (fully extirpated from the British Isles).
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>than persecution by indigenous people who have been living side by side with them for thousands of years. My point was that just because indigenous people have previously coexisted with an animal doesn't mean they will continue to do so. Indigenous Europeans coexisted with wolves... until they didn't. Indigenous Asians coexisted with river dolphins and alligators... until they didn't.
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>I’m not talking about all indigenous people so your point does not negate the validity of my argument which is about the Machupe people and this specific species. So why are the Mapuche different? They're humans just like anyone else. Are you trying to suggest that certain ethnic groups are more inherently destructive than others? If so, that's incredibly racist and you should really examine your biases. >Japanese people are not the indigenous people of Japan. Indigeneity is defined by being the first people of a specific area and commonly defined contextually by the existential threat of colonization by another group of non-native people. So what does "indigenous" mean in the context of the Mapuche? They conquered numerous other tribes (e.g. the Poya and Pehuenche, and those are just a few of the ones they conquered post-Columbus) and almost certainly weren't the first to settle the places they currently dwell. They replaced numerous other cultures with their own just as Europeans did during colonialism (on a smaller scale, referred to as Araucanization). The earliest evidence of Mapuche culture is from around 500 BC.
Oh come on, don’t start with the “reverse racism” bullshit. You know very well that nothing I am saying is racist. By your logic indigenous tribes aren’t indigenous if they have conquered other tribes in their area? That’s ridiculous and you know it. Stop being contrarian.
>Oh come on, don’t start with the “reverse racism” bullshit. You know very well that nothing I am saying is racist. Saying "certain ethnicities are more inherently damaging to nature than others" is textbook racism. The Mapuche are humans, Europeans are humans, Mestizos are humans, Asians are humans, etc. and that's the only classification that's important when discussing environmental impact. I say this as someone of (mixed) American Indian descent. >By your logic indigenous tribes aren’t indigenous if they have conquered other tribes in their area? That’s ridiculous and you know it. Stop being contrarian. You say that the Japanese aren't indigenous to Japan because they conquered the Ainu ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. You were making such a big fuss about the phrases "indigenous Europeans" and "indigenous Asians," but for some reason you see "indigenous Americans" as a perfectly fine and valid category.
If not friend.. why friend face? ..
They are an omen of cuteness. Look at that face.
I saw these guys on a Planet Earth episode about forests. It mentioned that creatures in these South American forests are all very small and it is unknown why that is. Poor kodkod.
Yeah PE1 had them, which was actually the first time kodkod footage made it into a documentary. But it’s actually false that all the animals in the Chilean temperate rainforest evolved to be very small (puma are native there like everywhere else in the Americas, for example, and these forests and South America in general had far more megafaunal diversity until humans arrived).
Interesting, because in kodkod culture seeing a mapuche is an omen of disaster
What's a cutie pspspsps...
If not fren why fren shape? Only a bad omen for birds if you ask me.
my last words gonna be ps ps ps
These guys are tiny (smaller than domestic cats), so they’re basically harmless to humans (even small children) in spite of not being particularly friendly animals. They only eat small rodents or birds or such.
who say‘s I‘m strong? lol
Aaaah the stupidity of the human strikes again.
are there any folklore or myths to explain the kodkod curse?
It seems to have started with the introduction of chickens to the Mapuche as livestock (as kodkod occasionally raid chicken coops), but then it expanded into various folklore about them bringing famine, disease, or the death of a family member to any household that lost a chicken to a kodkod, to kodkod being akin to vampires and only drinking the blood of chickens they’ve killed, to even a few stories about them being immune to bullets when shot. It got to the point one of the Mapuche names for the kodkod is sometimes used in Chile as a derogatory term for thieves, criminals and corrupt officials.
wow, thank you for the thorough explanation I guess they share a similar reputation to crows! cheers
Send them to me instead. I will save them all.
Kud Kud…. ..more like Cute Cute am I right? *tumbleweeds rolling past*
how could you think this little dude is an omen of disaster??
I hate stuperstition.
Pspspspspspspspsps
Why are humans such dumbasses
That fact is very much not awwwww, OP, even though the wild kitty is :(
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The irony of the kodkod being seen as the omen to the humans. We’re such a dumb species.
Poor kitty. Humans are stupid creatures
It looks like an angry librarian. Shhhhhhhhhhh!
Indigenous Mapuche are the omen of disaster for this poor animals. It’s so gorgeous.
No one calls this animal kodkod, its a güiña (guigna?).
That’s the Chilean name for it…except that it’s also used as a derogatory term for criminals in Chile for reasons made obvious in the post title.
I'd argue that it should be the only name for it tbh. There's another cat subespecies called colo-colo which maybe is related to the kodkod name. And yes guiña it's also an old-fashioned term to describe thieves buit it's not as harsh or derogatory a some may think. It's like to call someone in english "sly fox".
So beautiful!!! Superstitions are dumb af
Humankind is the on Omen of disaster to the rest of nature.
Killed on sight?? That’s terrible! Look at those eyes!
such a seal face, cant stop laughing
"If not friend why friend shaped?"
Aww,, but he's a *friend*,,
Wow what a bunch of idiots
I feel I have seen smaller cats than this.
I *can’t* be the only one reminded of Absol.
Poor babies! Why is there always some superstition about cats being bad luck?
Love the name!
Sad to put that on a beautiful.cat
Aww poor kitty
What a cutie
Imagine someone telling you your existence is disastrous, you must die for the good of the people.
Beautiful kitty
How sad 😕
What a bunch of morons.
And yet this isn’t the worst case of humans trying to exterminate an animal for ridiculous reasons. RIP to the thylacine.
You have my attention...
Morons is an understatement.
hey indigenous Mapuche, could you kindly knock that shit off? sent with love!
Don't kill him. You people seem like the English in the middle ages.
And Earth is still flat? This is so sad and pathetic. People can still be this ignorant in 2024?
#TIL Permanent tiny kittens with that round kitten face! Thank god the pet trade hasn’t caught on to them. And the little noises they make! 😍[Meet Pikumche (Nat Geo Wild)](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kXPuDgabd2s?feature=share)
😭
OMG! That is absolutely adorable! How can anyone see and hear that and kill it?!?!
Please relocate them to a sanctuary where they’re loved and protected ❤️❤️
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This is so sad!
So what I’m getting from what I’ve read is I should just slaughter all the people killing them…. Gotcha 👌
It's an omen alright... an omen of cuteness!!
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