Clearly you are not a cat person ... the question is not if it can be tamed, but how quickly it can tame the humans around it ... ;-)
Some animals are just harder to tame and remain ferocious more than others. But behaviour of animals is adaptable and most animals learn.
Cats are the perfect killing machines (apart from maybe sharks) :)
It doesn't look like it wants to be petted. I stay clear.
Where do you find this?!!??! This is GOLD!
https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all
I like that the Craigslist site design is utilitarian and hasn't changed much over the years. The downside is that stuff like this can hide in plain sight.
They may be unique - a super-successful predator that has persuaded a more dominant species to look after it by looking cute and feeling soft and making relaxing noises.
They don’t go outside (they can’t really, it’s too busy by the road here and they’d decimate the wildlife, but I live with it because ultimately we’re doing them a huge favor by giving them a home, post-rescue) so I am sure that has something to do with it. Perhaps infantilism is keeping them in this pack headspace? But even then my mother’s cat — rural, murderous, tough tabby tom — treats her like a god and the rest of us as an annoyance.
They antagonise each-other most of the time, but they also support each other in times of stress. If one goes to the vet and the other doesn't, the initial reaction is hissing and being a dick. Then, after a few minutes, it's licking and comforting.
I don't like to anthropomorphise too much, but they definitely look out for each-other. Equally, they definitely annoy each-other.
Those and lions are the only cats known that don't mind to tolerate friends and non relatives around in their territories, cats clearly enjoy the company, form hierarchies and share food. Hyaenas and mongooses are related with cats and definitely social also. Lingsangs on the other way, are solitary.
The rest, of course, is history. Now he’s a big 20lb goober of a cat who is positively enamored with my wife. The feeling is mutual.
Now she has been with us for years. She’s very loyal to me, dismissive to aggressive to anyone else. Not sure why me and not my wife, but hey :)
She basically sleeps next to me all the time, both when I work from home or at night. She’s 14 now, no medical issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roar_(film)#Injuries_and_set_d...
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/28/africa/woman-killed-lion-...
FTFA: "The man took the animal home, believing it to be a domestic breed. But after about a year of living with the clearly wild animal, he realized it would be better off at a sanctuary."
If they do not have a developed prefrontal cortex acting as a filter from instinct to action, they will be nice or calm for a long time - until the whim occurs and they will act violently. Maybe just for a fraction of a second. And at that point, their strength and natural weapon will make a whole difference.
I think not all of them categorically refuse to be pets, but they're noticeably more aggressive and less affectionate compared to housecats.
Unfortunately while people are going wild as if someone found a never-before-seen cat, this is actually more “after genetic analysis we now know that the tiger cats that everyone already knew about in Bolivia are actually a different species to the ones in Brazil”.
But that’s not very exciting so people and news outlets seem to be running with the story as if nobody had ever seen one before.
There are almost identical animals from different species in the area. The scientific term is an species complex.
I mean, the dude tried to feed it "noodles, rice, and eggs" so I'm not sure if he'd be able to tame my very own house cat, even starting from the house cat's current stage of being entirely tamed.
If you don't raise them with humans since they are born, they can't be tamed.
However these come from a centuries-long bloodline of house cats of course. A species that's never been domesticated is very different.
This particular one was actually being kept in a house because someone confused it for a "pretty housecat". After a while, the owner realized it didn't want to be tamed and contacted someone for help.
Also, it's the only known one in existence. Hard to start a breeding program unless they find more.