It’s a cat . . . it’s a helicopter . . . it’s Orvillecopter!
There are many ways to memorialize our pets and Dutch artist Bart Jansen may have employed the most unique method yet.While alive, a cat named Orville Wright named for one of the Wright brothers, was Jansen’s pet who loved to chase after birds. Orville Wright’s life expired after being hit by a car. Jansen mourned his pet and stored the cat’s body in a freezer for six months before taking him to a taxidermist, placing a remote control engine in the cat’s abdomen, and adding plastic propellers to each paw. It took several to get Orvillecopter flying as intended.
Recently, the artist introduced Orvillecopter to the world at the KunstRai Art Fair in Amsterdam. Feedback on Orvillecopter is quite mixed, from awe to dismay to outrage by animal activists. Jansen feels that he has memorialized Orville Wright in just the way the cat would have wanted: chasing after birds.
The average life expectancy of an indoor male cat is 12 to 14 years, with female indoor cats outliving males by a couple of years. The 2010 Guiness Book of World Records records Creme Puff, a female cat who lived in Austin, TX, as the oldest cat in the world; she lived 38 years and 3 days.
No pet parent wants to think about the day when their purring pal will cease to be an active member of their household. However, as with humans, it’s good to be prepared when that day comes. While traditional options remain, new methods have been added to the mix:
- Burial
- Cremation
- Tattoos
- Taxidermy
- Memorial diamonds
- Cloning
More to come on methods of memorializing our purring pals. =^..^=