Baidianer, (白点儿，or 'white spot'), a stray cat living in the Forbidden City, died on Monday after becoming an online sensation for making six successful predictions for this year's World Cup.
The cat found fame on June 14 after successfully picking Russia in the opening game, winning thousands of web users' hearts. Its sudden death saddened the internet, and thousands of comments were posted to bid the cat farewell.
The path to fame
Staff at the Palace Museum prepared two bowls of cat food before each game, each marked with the flags of participating nations, to see Baidianer's choice. The chosen bowl would be its official prediction.
The betting game did not always go smoothly, however. Baidianer failed twice, picking the wrong winners. Later, netizens were surprised by a picture from the museum's official Weibo account showing Baidianer so 'ashamed' of its failure it was hiding its face under its paws.
The cute picture melted the hearts of many, and netizens cried out they wanted to send some cat food to comfort it.
Baidianer won back credibility by making five consecutive successful guesses. The story was an online hit. 'I have prepared the best canned food for it,' one commenter said.
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Worsening health condition
On June 27, however, the museum reported the cat had fallen seriously ill and was sent to hospital. Initial checks showed the cat's hind legs had become paralyzed. Later, it began breathing heavily and howled in pain. Baidianer was suffering from thrombus — a blood clot.
After receiving well-wishes from fans, the Palace Museum decided to open up a special Weibo account for the cat to update users on its treatment and health condition. The account accumulated more than 24,000 followers.
Sadly, on Monday at around 8 am, the account announced that Baidianr had died. 'Sorry,' it said. 'We are not able to have him with us anymore.'
Mourning at the palace resident's death, thousands of comments flooded in, sharing pictures and memories of Baidianer. If it's true a cat has nine lives, this story may continue — perhaps with the next World Cup.
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The Forbidden City's cats
Cats have long lived in the Forbidden City, which dates back more than 600 years. They were kept as royal pets for the emperor and his relatives.
Now, more stray cats have moved in, roaming the lanes of the former royal palace in search of their archenemies: mice.
With a growing feline population, the Forbidden City decided to start a special program to take care of the cats and neuter them in 2009.
The program follows the trap-neuter-return principle, or TNR, a method of humanely trapping stray cats, spaying or neutering them and then returning them to the location they were collected, said Gao Haiying, a Beijing-based animal protection worker in charge of the museum's program.
Each stray cat has their own 'personal information': name, pregnancy status, neutering operation type and the amount of money spent on the operation.
'They are a powerful deterrent against museum rats, and we have not had a single cultural relic damaged by cat claws,' said Ma Guoqing, the museum's sanitation director.
Zhang Yangfei and Xinhua contributed to this story.
Click here for audio and translation of the story
Editor: Jiao Jie
Intern: Zhao Han
Proofreader: Ian Goodrum
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