The Van cat ( tr, Van kedisi; ;
Eastern ; ku, pisîka Wanê, script=Latn, italic=yes) is a distinctive
landrace of the
domestic cat
The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members o ...
found in the
Lake Van
Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...
area of the
Armenian Highlands in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
.
Van cats are relatively large, have a chalky white coat, sometimes with ruddy coloration on the head and hindquarters, and have blue or amber eyes or have
heterochromia
Heterochromia is a variation in coloration. The term is most often used to describe color differences of the iris, but can also be applied to color variation of hair or skin. Heterochromia is determined by the production, delivery, and concentra ...
(one eye of each colour).
[ Like many sources, this one conflates the ]Turkish Van
The Turkish Van (pronounced Von) is a naturally occurring breed of domestic cat that originated in the Lake Van area of modern-day Turkey, part of Armenian Highlands. The Van is classified as a semi-long hair, but it has two lengths of hair, de ...
standarised breed, which is actually British, with the local Van cat landrace of Turkey, and so must be interpreted with caution.[ /www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=tr&to=en&a=http://www.vankedisi.net/ Machine translation into English] The variety has been referred to as "the swimming cat", and has been observed to swim in Lake Van.
The naturally occurring Van cat type is popularly believed to be the basis of the
Turkish Van
The Turkish Van (pronounced Von) is a naturally occurring breed of domestic cat that originated in the Lake Van area of modern-day Turkey, part of Armenian Highlands. The Van is classified as a semi-long hair, but it has two lengths of hair, de ...
breed,
as
standardised
Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...
and recognised by many cat fancier organizations; it has been internationally
selectively bred
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant mal ...
to consistently produce the ruddy head-and-tail colouring pattern on the white coat. However, one of the breed founders' own writings indicate that the four original cats used to
found the formal breed came from other parts of Turkey than the Lake Van area.
The run-together term "Turkish " is confusingly used by some organisations as a name for all-white specimens of the standardised Turkish Van breed.
History
Van cats have been reported living in the vicinity of the city of
Van
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...
and the general Lake Van area for centuries;
how long is uncertain. Genetic research has shown that the domestic cat's ancestor, the
African wild cat
The African wildcat (''Felis lybica'') is a small wildcat species native to Africa, West and Central Asia up to Rajasthan in India and Xinjiang in China. It has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List in 2022.
In Cyprus, an African wi ...
(''Felis lybica''), was domesticated, for rodent control, about 9,000 years ago in the Near East when tribes transitioned from hunter-gathering to crop farming and settled life. In addition, the white-spotting in domestic cats appeared at the earliest stage of cat domestication, and is one of the points of evidence of early artificial selection. However, this does not necessarily mean that white cats have been in the Van area the entire time.
The landrace is named (plural ) in Turkish, ''Vana gadu'' () or ''Vana katu'' () in Western and Eastern
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
, respectively,
and in
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
.
Characteristics
![Turkish Van Cat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Turkish_Van_Cat.jpg)
Van cats are all-white,
or sometimes mostly white with amber markings around the tail and ears. Locals to the Van area identify only the all-white type as Van cats, according to a 1991 BBC documentary, ''Cats'', written and presented by Roger Tabor.
[ The documentary distinguishes the largely feral, white Van cats (the type identified as such by Van locals) from the auburn-marked Turkish Van breed, agreeing with other sources that the latter was developed by the British in 1955 from Turkish stock. This information is also presented in Tabor's tie-in book, ''Cats: The Rise of the Cat'', (1995).]
Their most notable genetic characteristic is their almond-shaped eyes that often are
mismatched colours.
The most valued members of the type generally have one amber-green eye and one blue eye.
Behaviour
Van cats are known for swimming in Lake Van.
This may be the source of the popular, but possibly false or exaggerated,
[ Hart cites a ''Cat Fancy'' magazine article as his source.] belief that the formal Turkish Van breed is innately more fond of water than the average cat. Lushington wrote: "Apart from their great capacity for affection and alert intelligence, their outstanding characteristic is their liking for water, not normally regarded as a feline attribute. They not only dabble in water and play with it, but have been known to enter ponds and even horse-troughs for a swim – they soon became famous as the 'swimming cats.
It is unclear if Lushington means the cats of the Lake Van area, or her own Turkish Van standardised breed. Tabor's BBC documentary states: "The reason for
tsfame is that the Van cat is known as 'the swimming cat'....
re at Lake Van ... these cats do enter it, and swim."
Current status
![Van cat in breeding centre](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Van_cat_in_breeding_centre.jpg)
Van cats form a
landrace (naturally occurring, free-breeding variety, often
feral), not a
standardized breed
A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slight ...
of cat.
They can still be found in east Turkey, near Lake Van, although their numbers have diminished (a 1992 survey found only 92 pure Van cats in their native area).
There is a
breeding programme for the all-white variety, operated by the Van Cat Research Centre (a.k.a. the Van Cat House), established in 1995 at the campus of
Yüzüncü Yıl University.
the centre housed about 350 young adults and kittens, is open to the public for a nominal entrance fee, and cats can be
adopted
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
.
However, reports have suggested that the living conditions for the cats held there is not optimal, and the programme seems to be ineffective in reversing Van cats' declining numbers.
In regional culture
Van cats are claimed as a cultural icon by Armenians, Kurds, and Turks, who have inhabited the region at different periods in history.
Armenian
Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
often consider the breed to be historically Armenian, as the Lake Van area
had a large Armenian population and was within the Armenian homeland prior to their local extermination during the
genocide of 1915.
[ Like many, this source incorrectly equates the modern Turkish Van breed, which is actually British in origin, with the Van cat landrace.] The local Armenians were said to have "revered" the cat.
Among them was post-impressionist and surrealist artist
Arshile Gorky, later an immigrant to the United States, who sculpted Van cats in the early 1910s.
Armenian writer
Vrtanes Papazian wrote a short novel in which the cat has been used as a symbol of the Armenian liberation movement. Armenian authors
Raffi,
Axel Bakunts, and
Paruyr Sevak have featured Van cats in their works.
Ottoman and modern Turkish
Cat breeder Laura Lushington (co-founder of the "
Turkish Van
The Turkish Van (pronounced Von) is a naturally occurring breed of domestic cat that originated in the Lake Van area of modern-day Turkey, part of Armenian Highlands. The Van is classified as a semi-long hair, but it has two lengths of hair, de ...
" formal breed, from cats procured from various parts of Turkey), wrote of the local Van cats, "they are much loved and prized by the Turks for their exceptional character and unique colouring."
Turkish folklore has it that a Van cat was aboard
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in t ...
, and that as the flood waters receded, Allah (God) blessed the cat with a ruddy patch of fur on its head when it left the ark, after which it made its way to the city of Van via
Mount Ararat
Mount Ararat or , ''Ararat''; or is a snow-capped and dormant compound volcano in the extreme east of Turkey. It consists of two major volcanic cones: Greater Ararat and Little Ararat. Greater Ararat is the highest peak in Turkey and th ...
.
Many Van cats are all-white, however.
At the end of the 19th century, Sultan
Abdul Hamid II
Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid II ( ota, عبد الحميد ثانی, Abd ül-Hamid-i Sani; tr, II. Abdülhamid; 21 September 1842 10 February 1918) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 31 August 1876 to 27 April 1909, and the last sultan to ...
is said to have owned a Van cat, and having one is still seen as a status symbol: a
Prime Minister of Turkey
The prime minister of the Republic of Turkey (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Başbakanı'') was the head of government of the Republic of Turkey from 1920 to 2018, who led a political coalition in the Grand National Assembly of ...
received one as a gift, and an ambassador from Greece put himself on a waiting list to get one. Kittens from the breeding programme could be purchased for the equivalent of
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
282 in 2011, and the
Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (which also regulates livestock) does not control the export of these or any other cats from Turkey. The 1991 BBC documentary indicated that the all-white cats are locally prized in Van, and even coveted by visitors. While most Van cats are feral street cats, tourists have been known to steal pet Van cats from residents.
During the late 1990s, Van cats emerged as an informal
municipal
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
symbol of the city of Van – an enormous statue of a Van cat and her kitten now stands at the entrance to the city. The cat appears in a locally published comic strip, and in the logos of bus companies,
shopping centres, and various other Van businesses.
The mascot of the
2010 FIBA World Championship
The 2010 FIBA World Championship was the 16th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship contested by the men's national teams. The tournament ran from 28 August to 12 September 2010. It was co-organised by the Inte ...
of basketball, hosted by Turkey, was an anthropomorphised Van cat named Bascat. He had a white coat and odd eyes, one blue and one green, and his head was shaped with design cues from the crescent moon on the
Turkish flag
The national flag of Turkey, officially the Turkish flag ( tr, Türk bayrağı), is a red flag featuring a white star and crescent. The flag is often called "the red flag" (), and is referred to as "the red banner" () in the Turkish national a ...
.
Kurdish
The Van region has a large Kurdish population, and Van cats have been referred to as "Kurdish cats"
[ /www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-53440377.html Grossbongardt, Annette and Zand, Bernhard, "Kurdische Katzen", ''Der Spiegel'' 44/2007/ref> or the "Kurdish Van cat", and made a symbol of ]Kurdistan
Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, Kurdish la ...
in Kurdish nationalist circles. Some media sources reported that Turkish soldiers poisoned about 200 Van cats. These claims ultimately seem to have come from an animal rescue group called SOS Van Cats Rescue Action, a spokesperson for which stated: "The cats are Kurdish, and the Turkish authorities are unable to digest this." Van University's cat-breeding project responded: "That the Turkish army would be able to find 200 Van cats, let alone poison them, is utter nonsense".
References
External links
*
{{Van, Turkey
Cat breeds originating in Turkey
Cat landraces