Never Love a Feral Cat: A Tale of Compassion and Coexistence

By Alwyn Moss

In this time of technological complexity, real connections seem more difficult but more important than ever. In this memoir, author Alwyn Moss describes the unexpected relationships of her and her neighbors in a rural retirement settlement with a colony of feral cats. With the aid of committed volunteers and animal professionals, the residents vision of harmonious coexistence becomes an amazing reality.

The fear of wildness, so common in humans, is one of many obstacles the residents have to confront. Day by day, Moss and her friends come to know the cats as bright individuals and to accept them as worthy creatures who deserve to be cared for. Timid at first, the ferals slowly grow tamer as barriers of mutual mistrust are bridged and the shadow of mass euthanasiathe fate of so many feral animals in sheltersfades.

So why should we care about creatures we dont own or control? Whats in it for us? The human-animal relationship beyond pet ownership has much to offer. As the dark image of ferality is replaced with experience and understanding, these cat ladies learn courage and independence and come to experience more aliveness and joy. Read how Fluffy, Grumpy, Pet Pet, and others enrich Mosss life and the lives of her dear friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781480849150

Alwyn Moss

Alwyn Moss’s early fiction and nonfiction appeared in Harper’s, Dance, Seventeen, and Mademoiselle. Her first book, Shaping a New World: A Biography of Margaret Mead, led to her deeper interest in animal and planetary issues. Her other works include Remembering Their Names: A Collection of Poems and To Love the Earth: A New Way of Being Human.

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Copyright © 2017 Alwyn Moss.

Cover Photo by Megan Lange

Full-Page Photos by Paula T. Markham

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Bible scripture: King James Version (Oxford University Press); six scriptures quoted

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4914-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-4916-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-480-84915-0 (e)

Archway Publishing rev. date: 09/12/2017

In remembranc

e of

Peter Pet Pet

Grumpy

Mama May

Fluffy

Dolly

Latte

Oreo

Wiz

Wuz

Luci

Myshkin

and all whose lives we gladly shared

To all those, young and old, who seek and find

the time, energy and will

to support the homeless and the hungry—

be they feral cats, humans, or other forms of life

Especially to those who took part with me as helpers

in the interactive community of care for a colony of cats:

Ruth, Betty, Patricia, Julie, Beth, Wendy, Megan L.,

Linda, Megan W., Don, Ed, Barbara, Roberta,

Margaret, Pat O., Laurie, and Kara

And to the furry lives who became part of our lives,

for whom we did the best we could for as long as we could.

Many now rest in the retirement settlement’s pet cemetery.

It is my privilege to name those who have taught

and led me in the direction of compassion toward all life:

Dietrich and Eva von Haugwitz; Tom Regan;

Emily Weinstein; Betty Bartschmid; Rita Reynolds;

and close friends Starflower O’Sullivan, Liza Field,

Ed Wesley, Gini Cooper, and Lucy Goldberg

To Dr. Alonzo Jones of the Blacksburg Animal Clinic

To Alley Cat Allies, for their commitment to

and long-range vision of alleviating the suffering of animals

With apologies to anyone unnamed here who was or is

part of this journey of compassion and coexistence

CONTENTS

STRANGERS IN MY GARDEN:

AN INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

IN HONOR OF WILDNESS

CHAPTER TWO

FELIS SILVESTRIS CATUS

CHAPTER THREE

TRAPPING AND TRUCKING

CHAPTER FOUR

THE HUMAN CONNECTION

CHAPTER FIVE

FERALS UP CLOSE

CHAPTER SIX

THE GREAT BIRD–CAT DEBATE

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE LAST WINTER: THE NUMBERS FALL

CHAPTER EIGHT

NEVER LOVE A FERAL CAT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

RESOURCES

WORKS CITED

STRANGERS IN MY GARDEN:

AN INTRODUCTION

This is a book about feral cats and people who care about them. Despite the negative image that often accompanies the term feral, if you are a lover of the species Felis silvestris catus—which includes cats we call domestic and those considered feral—you will probably enjoy this book. If, however, you are not that enthusiastic about cats, you might still find this book good reading, because its focus is on that mysterious and interesting animal, the one that proverbially walks alone and cannot be controlled unless it wants to be, named Cat.

Many strands have come together during my life to equip me for tackling this personal study and memoir over a period of years, inspired by the presence of a colony of feral cats outside my patio door. From early childhood, I was fascinated by animals, watching tigers, lions, and other exotic creatures at the Central Park Zoo near my home in New York City. Some of my first writings were about turtles, bears, and wild places. Later in life I had a job working to protect endangered species with the Fauna Preservation Society at the London Zoo, where I learned a great deal that would serve me and my writings in the years to come.

Having already published fiction and non-fiction in national magazines, my study of physical and cultural anthropology at the university level led to my being chosen to write a biography of the noted anthropologist Dr. Margaret Mead, published as Shaping a New World by Encyclopaedia Brittanica Press in 1963. As time went on, my works often centered on my concerns for the planet, the tragic increasing extinction of established animal species, and querying how these changes might come to affect our own species and the places we live.

It was not surprising, then, that once I moved into a retirement settlement suitable for the later stage of my life, encountering ferals at my back door moved me to form a group with my neighbors to help them survive. It felt inevitable that I would want to document the ways in which the cats and humans could interact to the benefit of all in the building of mutual trust.

The journaling I began soon turned into this ecological memoir. I realized I was taking joy in speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves and who are frequently the subjects of distorted truths and generalizations. The writing of this book in relationship to the experiences we were having also stemmed from a deeper place—a desire to feel a greater sense of inclusiveness, to break through the barriers of differentiation and fear into the larger dimensions beyond our human-centered perspective, to look at life through other eyes.

Yet another significant reason for my need to write this book is that the millions of unowned and homeless cats in our nation today have become a topic of debate and controversy. I felt a need to better understand this debate, and to share my own findings with others in the pages that follow. Doing so inspired me to research the history of felines, especially the domestic-feral species known scientifically as Felis silvestris catus, as readers will come to learn in the first chapter and will read a great deal more about in Chapter Six: The Great Bird–Cat Debate.

Brought into our human lives thousands of years ago, cats have been worshipped, as in Egypt, and also killed, as in parts of Europe during the Middle Ages for so-called religious reasons. Over time, having proven their worth in practical terms by catching mice and rats that threaten human food sources and cleanliness, cats have won their place in the hearts and homes of millions of families and individuals throughout the world.

But as our population has soared, so has theirs. For those creatures who, due to one misfortune or another, have found themselves abandoned and adrift, the story is often tragic. Seven out of ten cats and kittens, mostly ferals, lose their lives in animal shelters unless humans intervene to help them. Once homeless and on their own, most cats band together in groups to form what are known as colonies. Their progeny then also reproduce, and all of them must struggle to find food wherever they can—behind Dumpsters, on farms, around empty buildings, even in retirement villages like the one I have lived in for over a decade.

As in a growing number of locales around human development, the rural retirement settlement I moved into hosted a large colony of feral cats. Many residents found this situation distasteful, but I saw it as a challenge and believed there was plenty of room and good reasons for us all to live together in peace. What was needed was a modus vivendi—a manner of coexisting with these mostly beautiful animals and whatever aspects of wildness they carried with them.

How this vision came to pass over many years of commitment and hard work by myself and others is the substance of the chapters ahead. Discovering and learning how to create a multi-species community became an opportunity for change. Fortunately, with the help of a local animal organization and kind veterinarians, we came to employ the methods of Trap-Neuter-Return—a humane approach to feral cat populations that is being used with growing success in the United States and many other parts of the world. As we came to respect and understand our felines, they became gentler in behavior and our relationships with them grew, even to the point of my falling in love with one of them—a romance I describe in detail later on.

What is the truth about ferals? Simply observing and documenting as honestly as possible this one colony of cats over a decade yielded surprising results that might well have a validity scientific studies do not, despite the impressive statistics and generalizations derived from them. As far as I can tell, there is no one truth about feral cats, no one approach, perhaps no one solution. Colonies vary in many ways, including specifics of place and environment, and the variety of individuals, both human and feline, involved over time. I feel this simple study might be recognized as an addition to the current debate over what to do about feral cats. It is important to clarify that this book makes no claim to being a scientific study in the usual sense of the term, nor does it state any conclusive results applicable to the wider feral cat situation or its effects on various environments and wildlife.

How humanity is responding to the vast number of animal species on this planet is of great concern to me, and is related to the content of this memoir. As wildness itself and the wildernesses of the natural world—source and foundation of the evolutionary process—are vanishing quickly due to human population growth and large-scale development, we are depriving thousands of other species their right to live. Mammals are especially vulnerable, and almost every sub-species of the greater feline family—lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, panthers, and jaguars—are all within a few decades of extinction. In the near future, Felis silvestris catus alone might be their sole representative. Interestingly, the domestic cat is a small mammal that combines millions of years of wildness with the ability—even, it would seem, the desire—to become tame enough to share home and hearth with the exalted species that we are.

Though we are at the top of the heap as a species in terms of innovation and adaptation, our limited perspectives may endanger us more than we realize. Nature, in all its aspects, including the animal kingdom, is seen today as primarily for human use or profit. Superior species though we appear to be, our connectedness to those other lives is in great need of healing, lest we find ourselves on a planet bare of their diversity, magnificence, and a form of companionship that has nourished the human spirit and creativity since our beginnings. We have a choice. By developing our latent capacities for compassion and wisdom, coexistence with other forms of creation can become an enriching reality. Such a transformation for us all is the hope and motivation of this book.

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Latte

A clipped ear, but the gentlest of ferals

CHAPTER ONE

IN HONOR OF WILDNESS

The warm, clear light from the lamp on the table creates a reflection of myself in the long window of the door against the night outside. My head supported by my hand, arm resting on the round table, I look outside, where a wind is blowing the tall, bare trees in the garden beyond my patio, and the darkness reveals the white glint of snowflakes. Meanwhile, below, are the scarcely visible forms of several cats, their bodies against the door—my five ferals waiting and hoping for the evening meal, without which they would have a hard and wretched time dealing with the long, cold night ahead.

One of Emily Dickinson’s most quoted lines is, If I can… help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. This sentiment expresses, I think, that deep innate desire of humans to give to those in need—be it to each other or to animals in need. Many creatures, some wild and exotic like tigers, lions, elephants, and wolves, are in danger of extinction for various reasons and are certainly in need. Yet they are not in our immediate environment and that is not the story I have chosen to tell in the following chapters. Rather, this story is about how a group of fellow humans persisted in a decade-long effort of learning how to care for homeless cats that were part of the landscape outside our doors. They were a form of wildlife that we were actually able to get to know well.

Many aspects of aging are changing in our time, and many opportunities unknown in the past are now available to older people. Growing old, but not too old to assist creatures, can be a way of daily life that gives satisfaction in being able to provide for other living beings. I have discovered how this commitment became for me and I believe for many others, a doorway to a greater sense of living—a learning through hands-on work about a species other than our own that has enlarged our perspective and involvement in the larger Earth community. I tell this story especially to those who recognize a need to be in relationship with other forms of life, and to honor the opportunities such relationship can give in strengthening our own ways of being human.

Colonies of feral cats are a phenomenon of our time, similar in some ways to human refugees and the human homeless, and to any group of living beings having a hard time making it in this world but wanting and needing to survive. This is the deepest law of