Pretty nefarious idea, no? That is probably exactly what the CIA thought in the 1960s when they had a vet perform an hour-long procedure that turned a feline into a multimillion-dollar spy as a part of Operation Acoustic Kitty. The cat was implanted with a good deal of equipment then sent on a test run to spy on two men in a park.
We all can probably guess the likelihood of a house cat obeying its master/owner. What the CIA probably didn’t count on was their new multimillion-dollar national security ace-in-the-hole being run over by a taxi on its way across the street. The program was scrapped soon after. However, it wasn’t the first nor will it be the last attempt to employ the animal kingdom in our government’s day-to-day spy work. The website iO9 has a round-up including this case and other rather interesting tales of animal spies.
It hurt to look at the photos of animals with apparatuses fixed in them thinking of the operations that might have taken place and how painful and frightening it must have been for the animals involved and then to live with them, how they interfered with their natural lives.
Too often such stories reveal an attempt to trivialize the taking of a life or the mutilation of a being for a rediculous attempt by humans for an inane idea. As Gandhi said you can measure a country by the way it treats its animals.
Hopes lie in the phrase, peace, love, vegetarian. This compassionate saying loomed in my mind with the advent of Sandy Hook and the attempts at more gun control in this country.
Yes, peace, love, vegetarian.