How animals use humans and the human environment?

Now I am sure there is a more technical and up to date term that describes the activity where an animal, or animals, use(s) human(s) and the environment created by humans - but for the moment I am going to use the term (that hopefully I have made up and doesn't exist already - this may be amended in later edits) Anthropic Faunal Behaviour (AFB). 

Anthropic - "Of or pertaining to mankind or humans, or the period of humanity's existence." (Wikipedia 2013a)

Faunal - "Pertaining to animals." (Wikitionary 2013)

I got to thinking about this AFB after watching the BBC 2 Horizon programme on cats and how they are monitored through camera and global positioning system (GPS) tracking) - this programme can also be viewed on YouTube. 

I was interested in two distinct types of AFB, which I have named Active and Passive AFB - henceforth known as aAFB or pAFB - where the animal, a cat in these first few examples, either actively uses humans and their environment or not. When a cat is fed by its owner, I am suggesting that this is an example of aAFB as the cat's brain is accepting the food offered by the human and bypassing the natural instinct of hunting and killing prey. The definition of aAFB, as I see it, is where the animals gains something useful directly from the human. 

However, if the cat were to jump on and use the fence to reach a roof, I would like to suggest that this is a form of pAFB as I think that cat sees the fence and roof as an extension of the natural habitat. Although it could posited that the cat's senses would pick up the difference between natural and man-made structures through hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. The definition of pAFB, as I see it,  is where the animal uses human activity and/or human infrastructure/environment to gain something later in that animal's time line.

Although there could be an argument for a grey area between aAFB and pAFB, I currently searching for an example of this.

An example of pAFB with larger cats can be seen with the video of the cheetah as shot by novatolady and is shown below. The cheetah jumps up onto the Land Rover at around 22 seconds. Is the cheetah using it to escape the cheetah cub or is it using the elevated surface to look for prey and predators? Either way, I think the cheetah made a conscious effort to use the Land Rover for further activity but gains nothing directly from the humans.

I can say that this is not an individual event as a search on YouTube offered 397,000 videos although I cannot vouch for the authenticity of each of these videos as I haven't watched them all.

Next time - Avian aAFB & pAFB

Anthropic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013a. Anthropic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic. [Accessed 30 June 2013].

faunal - Wiktionary. 2013. faunal - Wiktionary. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faunal. [Accessed 30 June 2013].

Has YouTube replaced The Muppet Show?

For the uninitiated, The Muppet Show was a television show in the seventies that copied the old style of theatrical variety shows. The show was populated with small musical numbers, some comedy routines, maybe a headliner celebrity, who gets pushed into a big budget number with added realism with the sideways glances to the edge of the stage. Albeit in the stage manager's office controlling Viking singing pigs or listening to the heckling of the two old men in the box. This environment, created by Jim Henson and financed by Lew Grade is mainly populated by actors and actresses lovingly recreated in natural and man-made fibres apart from the celebrities.

The video above shows part one (of three) for the first episode of the first season. Within two minutes, we are introduced to Mahna Mahna - you could say it is a version of Psy's Gangham Style. It is sung mainly by a Muppet who could be wearing sunglasses or has really dark eyes singing lyrics that don't make much sense to the uninitiated but it is quite catchy. Does that remind you of anything?

On the flip-side, there seems to be no need to describe YouTube, but I will. It is a collection of videos added to by the public, "but was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal" (Wikipedia 2013). These videos attract "more than 1 billion unique users who watch over 4 billion hours of video each month whilst 72 hours of video are uploaded each minute" (YouTube 2013). But remind yourself of what videos are on YouTube - small musical numbers, some comedy routines, maybe a headliner celebrity, small furry animals. Here is one of the videos you might find readily on YouTube:

Each media outlet, be it through television (120 episodes of the original Muppet Show series - Wikipedia 2013) or through the Internet (in 2011, it had more than 1 trillion views - YouTube 2013) has its similarities and its differences. But, if you are bored on a Friday afternoon before you go home from work and watch a cute kitten or watch a sheep baa, it is possibly because the kids in the seventies were brought up on furry animal sketches. Enjoy this Muppet song brought to you by the wonders of YouTube and spot the celebrity plug.

So can you answer my question, has YouTube replaced The Muppet Show?

The Muppet Show - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. The Muppet Show - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Show. [Accessed 06 June 2013].

YouTube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. YouTube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube. [Accessed 06 June 2013].

Statistics - YouTube . 2013. Statistics - YouTube . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html. [Accessed 06 June 2013].