Here from the WaPo we hear about a special area (not really an island) near Shanghai where stray cats are sequestered. If you see the video below, you’ll see they’re better off there–people come to feed them amd adopt them–than roaming the streets. Click to read (archived free here, or go to a shorter article here).
An excerpt:
The pampered residents here were once strays in downtown Shanghai, a city of 25 million people and somewhere between 400,000 and 1.5 million stray cats. But efforts are underway to stem the exploding feral population in the metropolis and find homes for at least some of the newly neutered cats
Cat Island’s entire population is up for adoption. Many at “cat cafes” in the city do a similar thing: Provide a space where people can befriend and potentially take home a neutered, if shy, kitty.
There’s no equivalent of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in China. Instead, it’s left to grass-roots organizations like these to step in to save cats — from the streets, or from people who think they’re better off culled.
“Cat adoption has become quite popular in recent years, especially among the younger generation,” said Erica Guo, owner of all-rescue cat cafe More Meow Garden.
. . . and you can adopt the island’s cats, as (according to the article) cats are becoming more and more popular as pets in China:
At the end of 2022, a few months after Shanghai’s longest lockdown ended, a government-affiliated nonprofit foundation opened the 130-acre Shanghai Pet Base facility, which encompasses Cat Island.
It is concentrating on trapping and neutering strays, then returning them to the communities where they were found. When that’s not possible, they’re rehomed to Cat Island.
“This is what we are able to do, here and now,” said Zha Zhenliang, the foundation official responsible for Cat Island and the Pet Base. “We hope every [apartment] compound can have their own ‘cat island’ of a safe place for the cats to be,” and their feeders can operate openly, he said. Feeding strays can be a controversial activity, resulting in conflict between cat lovers and neighbors who just want them culled.
To adopt a Cat Island cat, people must first trek to the remote, grassy site outside Shanghai — a semirural location chosen to avoid angering neighbors — then complete a pet-care course and have their home inspected by video call for suitability. The precautions mean adoption numbers are barely denting the problem: In 18 months, only 130 cats have moved to new homes.
Here’s a 4½-minute video showing what the “island” is like. The cats seem pretty well taken care of.
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From Bored Panda we find a selection of fifty cat memes. Click below to read; I’ve selected a few for your delectation:
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Here’s a heartening tale from MPR News of a lost cat found after going missing for more than a month. Click below to read or click the link in the first sentence:
The story:
“Lost trucker cat. Help me get home, call my team. Leave tuna for me,” reads a poster with a white and gray cat posted around St. Cloud.
At 2 a.m. on Jan. 17, “Tom the lost trucker cat” jumped out of his owner’s semi truck at the Pilot/Flying J truck stop off exit 171.
“He took a few steps, turned back and gave me one last look,” Owner Angel Anthony Garcia said. Tom was gone.
Garcia and his wife, Tom’s other owner Marie Sanchez, searched for him as long as they could without success. Garcia had to deliver a truck full of apples to Virginia and the deadline was approaching.
They made the difficult decision to leave and hoped that someone would find him. Garcia posted about him in a local Facebook page.
Oh, man, I wouldn’t have abandoned that cat. But here’s the poster, labeled as a “courtesy photo”; I like the “please feed” bit:
But he was found!
Jan Peterson was scrolling Facebook and saw Garcia’s post about Tom. She reached out to Garcia and Sanchez and told them she wanted to help. This isn’t her first time looking for a lost pet, she has helped many families through Facebook find lost animals.
She contacted her community and set up a Facebook group for Tom asking for tips. She put up signs, posted on social media and wished for the best.
Forty days had passed with no sign of Tom. At 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Peterson’s husband woke her up.
“I think somebody found Tom!” he said.
She ran out of bed to find the Facebook post and there he was. A sweet, slightly dirty, gray and white cat.
When Garcia and Sanchez got the call he was okay, they were speechless.
“It was devastating to me because he is the light of my life,” Sanchez said. “Knowing he survived, knowing that he was found, oh my gosh, I can’t even tell you, I am so overwhelmed with joy. I can’t wait to get to him.”
Tom was found by Jeremiah Moe at a metalworking shop in Sauk Rapids, 9 miles from where he went missing.
Here’s the FB post asking if this was the right cat. He looks as if he had a rough time:
The end of the tail. But if the owners truly love Tom, why haven’t they gotten him yet?
Peterson retrieved him and brought him to Rice Vet Clinic where Dr. Kayla Schmitz took over. He had lost about half his weight, was dehydrated and a little roughed up. He was given fluids and cleaned. After being missing for more than a month, he showed little impact of the Minnesota climate.
On his journey it is likely he ran into wildlife, including predators, and the Mississippi River. While we may never know what Tom did for all those days, it is clear he was determined to survive.
Now he is staying with a foster home until his owners can come retrieve him. Funds are tight for Garcia and Sanchez. They are trying to get a truck load they can drive that will run through Minnesota so they can get Tom, but they haven’t heard about any opportunities yet. They said they will get to him as soon as they are able to.
“Get to him as soon as they are able to”? Is that love?
A bit more:
Peterson credits the community in his rescuing.
“It was the whole community … they really went out of their way to watch for him at night. They would check and say, ‘I went here today, I didn’t see him, but I look for him every night before I go to bed.’ It was that kind of dedication.”
Sanchez said Tom never would have been found without the residents of St. Cloud.
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Lagniappe: A music-loving moggie perched on the piano, soothed by a lullaby.
h/t: Barry, Ginger K.
Great to see some lucky cats in China.
And good stories with good endings for cats.
Thank you!
Aw gee, I think you’re being a little hard on the Garcia-Sanchez’s. They didn’t abandon the cat in the sense of having no intention of trying to recover him. As truckers, they have a conflicting responsibility to the people who hired them to haul a load. Not only that, they can’t afford to get a reputation for missing deadlines or they won’t get hired in the future.
And they surely don’t have the spare bucks to fly out to retrieve Tom or to take the time off from their work to travel to where he is.
Plus, Tom is reportedly now safe and sound, so there’s no rush – at least not on tom’s end! Honestly, I think owners suffer more without their cats than their cats suffer without them (as long as the cats are safe, warm, and fed, of course).
And he was tagged, microchipped, and trucker was ready with a good photo to make a very compelling “help me find my cat” poster. After 40 days on his own cat could use the recuperating time.
The Cat Island cats look to be very well taken care of, and the caretakers are obviously cat lovers.
The serenaded cat seems to waver between calm and uncertain. So much a cat!
What a lovely Caturday! All of it. I agree that it’s only finances preventing the trucker from retrieving Tom. It’s hard for people to understand how limiting lack of money can be if they’ve never lived that way. Thanks for today’s selection. My heart is warmed.
Well, finances and schedule. Probably more the schedule than the finances themselves.