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Where We Left Off:
A fox has been lurking around these parts, but she doesn’t come every night.
The Dark Hours:
Stray cats are in every kind of town. They aren’t only garbage-scavenging felines of fetid alleyways in the urban cities. The suburbs have long had a problem with people who enjoy feeding strays and won’t take ownership of them like getting them spayed or neutered. However, if you feed it, it’s your cat.
Those who aren’t loved by humans and truly feral have hard lives. They have shorter lifespans because of it. If you live in an area with free-roaming cats, see if there’s a TNR organization who will trap, neuter, and return the cats to the neighborhoods they know.
We have decent rodent and bird populations here so stray cats are likely to find some kind of prey. I think they manage to find commercial cat food left out for pet cats who are allowed to be outdoors. There’s one old couple a few houses away who have notoriously always fed cats and even had ones who were pets going in and out; but, they have never had any of them fixed. One of my cats was the product of a barn cat we adopted who was so feral and free that she wasn’t into being a pet. She got pregnant by this neighbor cat right after we got her. And thus began our black cat legacy (besides a tortie) to add to our orange cat obsession.
All that being said, I know those neighbors have another cat that they considered theirs—a female long-haired black cat they call Squeaky (I suspect she must resemble my old cat). I have a feeling she’s related to the long line of cats they’ve been feeding for sixty years. Gus and I haven’t seen her in a long time though and she’s never showed up on the trail camera.
So who are these cats showing up on our surveillance images? Free-roaming cats can declare a square mile territory. We seem to be surrounded by more dog households though. The Stranger, whom we investigated, hasn’t been seen for a number of months. Years are confusing now, but it was probably the Before Times (pre-pandemic). He did have an interesting color pattern of white with grey patches. I think the patches were striped like he was part tabby. This brings me to the trail cam images recently taken.
We have images that have definite raccoon identification. The tails are puffier than what we’re seeing in these other photos. It was time to put the photos up on the board and talk to our informants. In fact, we had to go all the way to the new mayor of Bunny Hollow, Bunnie Foy, to alert her of our concerns of the trespasser.
Perspective might be difficult to gauge with the trail camera. It’s hard to tell exactly how large an animal is. I needed something for scale so I searched through our files for a photo of Gus walking by the camera the way the mystery feline did. Gus’ photo is nearly perfect in placement and provided the right kind of control we needed for this investigation. The only discrepancy is that Gus and I performed this part of the investigation in the bright sunlight.
Comparing Gus to the suspect, here are the notes:
- Gus has a much longer and thinner tail.
- Gus is probably 2-3 pounds heavier than the stray.
- There’s more than one suspect?
Based on the evidence, this could be two different felines. One with a long, ringed tail and the other with a much shorter, solid color tail that appears to be medium-length fluffy. Oliver and Gus agreed that the July 15th cat is not the same as the August 20th cat!
See if you agree with our assessment. The middle photos of the collages do not look like the same cat. Let’s call the striped-tail cat Ringo and the shorter-tailed cat Mike. It was time to use our network of informants to find out more about these two cats.
I got the most details about him from a young blue jay, “Lorry Sheep” Biretta, who has been working his way into the Blue Jay Gang run by Louie “Eggs” Consalvo. She told me that Mike is a wandering cat who never looks for trouble. He’s a carefree, nature-loving tomcat with a strong devotion to the Earth spirits and powers. Mike is big enough to hold his own if a confrontation erupted, but he wouldn’t be the instigator.
“What do you know about Ringo?” I asked the bird.
“Not much. Only that you would want to make sure Gus doesn’t ever cross paths with him. Ringo might be a little smaller than Gus, but he’s like a finely-trained lightweight boxing champion,” Lorry told me.
I cringed. I know Gus and Oliver spar everyday, but they rarely get into serious brawls. They only time they do is when a stranger comes trespassing. It does something to these guys that make them go nutso. Oliver’s demon side comes out like it does on veterinary day. It’s bad when the demon surfaces.
Case Findings:
The team identified two different stray felines roaming through the estate. One seems like an okay wanderer who will keep to himself; the other sounds like there could be trouble. If Ollie and Gus ever see Ringo, they’re likely to attack each other.
We have no way of deterring strays since the grounds are open for all the other wildlife. There doesn’t seem to be anyway to resolve unwanted trespassing by other cats. This isn’t a My Cat From Hell episode where the yard is fenced in and cans of spurting compressed air can be placed by doors and windows. Having seen how shocked cats get from those gadgets, I would be horrified to see a chipmunk or squirrel set one off.
Case Status: Closed