Bonsai Kittens

An e-mail I received:
This is so terrible. A site that we were able to shut last year has returned We have to try to shut it down again! (www.bonsaikitten.com) A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS. That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put into little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for the rest of their lives!! The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their feces. The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The cats never get the opportunity to move. They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand. If you think you can handle it, go to this site www.bonsaikitten.com and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens into bottles. This petition needs 500 names, so please put your one name on it!!! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom, then send it to everyone you know! Here's the link: http://www.bonsaikittens.com

A 2nd e-mail regarding the first:
Just so everyone knows, Bonsai Kittens do not exist, nor is this a real website. This has been going around for quite some time and is simply someone's idea of a joke, even if in poor taste. Please check out the following sites, and always check www.snopes.com before forwarding any messages/petitions you believe to be true (such as the Touched by an Angel hoax, and so on). By the way, email petitions are in no way valid. There is no one in any position of power that takes them seriously. You can not cause someone to donate money to any of your favourite charities by how many times one is forwarded, nor is there any way to even track the numerous branches created every time someone forwards such a email to their group of friends. In other words, don't forward petitions. It is also no way to witness to your friends how much you love Jesus, nor does it indicate that you will go to hell if you do not forward to as many people as possible. Someone, somewhere started these things as a sick idea of a joke, so think about that before you go spreading it on. They probably have a great chuckle every time they receive this from someone with a long list of names endorsing their imaginary petition. So instead of signing this petition, try forwarding this or a similar letter, or write your own. Then maybe we can put a stop to these stupid things!http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/bonsai.asp
http://tafkac.org/ulz/bonsai.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/pranks/bonsai.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kittens