The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Portland, Ore., branch made a 2023 calendar featuring giant cats placed into photos of the Corps' projects. In this photo, two cats watch construction on a jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. (U. S. Army Corps of Engineers)
Gigantic cats using hydropower dams as scratching posts are just some of the pawed pinups in a 2023 calendar released by Pacific Northwest-based U.S. military personnel.
The photoshopped felines are part of an effort by the Portland, Ore., branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to portray their work in an entertaining light.
Staffers at the Portland office, which handles civil works in Oregon and southwestern Washington, placed the big cats into landscape photos of some of their most notable projects.
February’s cats play with a crane, August’s cats scream at excavators and November’s prowl near a fish ladder.
A cat sits atop Green Peter Dam near Sweet Home, Ore., in this image from the 2023 calendar produced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers branch in Portland, Ore. (U. S. Army Corps of Engineers)
Engineering isn’t always exciting, so the district tries to have a fun social media presence, public affairs specialist Chris Gaylord told NBC’s Today.com on Monday.
“I will use levity whenever I can; that’s what people enjoy,” Gaylord said. “That’s not us dumbing things down. That’s us respecting and not taking for granted the attention of our publics.”
Gaylord added that he plans to add dogs to the mix in the spring.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland, Ore., branch designed a 2023 calendar that features giant cats alongside projects done by the Corps’ personnel, such as at the Cascade Locks in Oregon. (U. S. Army Corps of Engineers)
The cat calendars are free to download as a PDF that can be printed out here.
More cats roam around Portland-area dams in photos in the district’s Twitter feed and on its Facebook page, which often feature gifs referencing pop culture.
The Portland district is one of 38 in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has approximately 37,000 personnel, most of them civilians, according to its website.
The agency operates more than 700 dams and 12,000 miles of inland waterways, a 2022 report by the Congressional Research Service said.
