Cat population changes
I was sitting here this morning after going outside to feed the critters and thinking about the difference in the feral cat population here. When we first moved here from Alaska over twelve years ago, there were feral cats everywhere. Funny Face, so named because of her odd black and white markings on her face, gave birth to six kittens the month we moved in. Her last kitten died last month- that would be Cleo.
We had Tuxedo the neighbor’s cat (renters) they could have cared less about him, and when he came over and started picking fights with my cats as tomcats are known to do, well he got a surprise visit to my vet and got his nuts clipped. Then, he decided our home was preferable to his and took up residence in our garage. He lived on our property wandering the other farms until some lowlife ended his life with an arrow through his chest. 
There was Cyclone who came roaring in like an orange storm. I had him neutered as well, and the days he spent in the cat room can be traced by the scratch marks on the ceilings, walls and doors. And yes, I do mean the ceiling. He used to run laps around the room, not on the floor but over the wall at the border between the wall met the ceiling. It was truly amazing and heart-breaking to watch because his terror was so great.
Franklin our rafter cat, lived up in the rafters of our garage for one year. I tried everything to bring this beautiful orange kitty down. I suspected his “dad” was Cyclone. Finally, when I quit trying so hard to capture him and just started ignoring him he came down in a flash and lived among us for six years.
Ghost the elusive white stray. She showed up one day, dirty and ill-kempt. I whisked her off the to vet after spending about two weeks trying to trap her. He was going to spay her, but found out she was already spayed. Ghost refused to stay inside and took up residence underneath our house. She wouldn’t come out except at night and often I would shine my flashlight underneath the crawl space and see her curled up with a possum or a raccoon regarding her.
Captain Midnight, an older black tom. Showed up one evening at midnight, thus earning his name. I knew just by looking at him that there was something wrong with him. It took about a week for me to be able to trap him and when I took him to my vet, the prognosis was grim, FeLV. I rushed home after having him euthanized and scrubbed everything he had touched threw out the water and food bowls that were outside, tore down the feral feeders and made new ones. Holding my breath for weeks, none of the other cats came down ill.
Fern, she was a puzzle, a tuxedo cat she appeared one rainy afternoon. I was out by the creek with the horses when I saw her step out of the ferns. She was holding something in her mouth, at first I thought it was a large rat. I had never seen her before on our place. She ran through the storm across the pasture and rushed into the shop. Mike was working and she dropped a kitten into his lap! Then she rushed out. She did this five times that day!
By the time I got to the shop after putting two horses scared by the storm into their stalls, Mike had 3 kittens bundled up in a blanket. We were both so puzzled, then she came back two more times. The final time, she just waited at our feet, so thinking she was done “collecting” her family, we took the whole gang up to the house into the cat room.
She settled them right in, choosing a cupboard I reserve for my canning products. About five o’clock she was banging on the door at the bottom of the steps, crying as if her heart was breaking. I rushed upstairs, her kittens were alive and safe, but her racket continued. She wanted outside! I talked to Mike and he agreed we needed to let her out. I opened the door, she raced through the house hit the cat door and raced across the pasture back to the creek area. I wondered if we would ever see her again. Half and hour later, Fern was back, and this time she was dragging the biggest kitten I have ever seen! He was so huge that she couldn’t pick him up in her mouth and he protests could be heard clear in the house.
I knelt down and rescued the little guy from his mom, took him upstairs with the rest of the group. The family settled down for the night.
Three days later, I went upstairs on my routine checks of the family and Fern was lying beside the kittens. She was gone. We buried her near the creek and took to bottle raising her young ones. This was the strangest encounter we had every experienced with cats, leading me to believe that cats mark homes that are “safe” with a special scent leading other cats to the door.
There have been so many cats, and thankfully in the last few years, with all my handouts about spaying and neutering, gently lecturing the kids sitting in front of the grocery store with boxes of kittens, and spaying and neutering every stray cat that arrived here, the wild cats aren’t around anymore. Not here, more than likely a few miles up the road there is an senior citizen who is feeding the cats outside and letting them breed because she can’t afford to spay or neuter. Or there is a farmer with a colony of barn cats and he could care less if they mate, or if kittens die, because after all, they are just “cats.”
I know the numbers are not dwindling here in the area. One trip to the local humane shelter brings that fact sharply into focus. All the shelters are full right now and more kittens come into the world daily. This is a problem we started. Not a problem the cats wished on themselves, but one we created. We are the only ones who can stop it. I just wonder when we will?