A story of compassion

Imagine for one moment you had a fan, who every week took around $100 that they could scarcely afford and used it directly to benefit your cause.

Imagine this same person volunteered a few hours each and every day, to work directly on the front line giving care and compassion and helping you with your mission.

Imagine that this person took it upon themselves to work reliably, without the need for praise or acknowledgement, and with scarcely any supervision. They just got in and did it.

Would you consider this person an incredibly valuable asset – or an enemy to be thwarted and maligned?

I took a trip out to Joondalup tonight to see how the few remaining cats were getting on. Unsurprisingly, they were getting on just fine. And now that the dust has had time to settle on the hysteria of the last few days, I was able to spend a few quiet moments with the lady who had to date, been working to give these feline victims a better life.

Her car arrived and the cats immediately ran to greet her.

How had she been feeling since the cats were trapped and killed? She was sad. She felt she had been used to attract the cats under the guise that they would be helped – and lied to since they were killed the next day. She was happy for them to be taken, but she wanted them to go to a better life.

She said she bought food on special, but that it was still expensive feeding the cats. She had to work in secret as local rangers had wanted to fine her for littering. Other people jeered her for caring for the cats, saying they should be exterminated. But other people were helpful. Some of the local shop workers brought food for the cats and donated extra to her – the cat lovers who wanted to help. She said she loves the cats and helping them gives her something meaningful to do each day.

She had been working with local rescue groups to take the tamer kittens for rehoming. They also took any pregnant cats or any with injuries. She was glad for the help of the rescue groups. She didn’t want to get too many cats.

I found it amazing that this dedicated and hands on front-line volunteer would be anything but celebrated by lovers of cats. Her efforts to keep this little colony healthy and managed was desperately in need of assistance, not condemnation. Sure, it would be fantastic to get all of the tameable cats into loving homes, but for the ones who would never be housepets – this carer and this colony was their family.

The seven cats who were seized and killed deserved to have the value of their lives – however ‘imperfect’ we deemed them to be – recognised.

They were not ‘feral’ – real ‘ferals’ (cats that do not depend on humans, or human resources) do not exist in urban areas. These Community Cats are the result of modern living, whether we – like it – want it – or think it’s right – or not. They are part of a self-sustaining ‘untame’ population in Australia that no amount of culling will eliminate. Even if every owned cat was desexed tomorrow it would have NO IMPACT on these guys (that’s what ‘self-sustaining’ means). Unless we all want to go back to living in the forest and hunting each and every meal – cats will live wherever they are able to live and that is generally at the outer limits of our modern cities. Demonizing them for doing so, is as misguided as it is arrogant. Killing them for doing so is simply inhumane.

So cat feeders like the Joondalup carer will continue to do their selfless work in secret. They will have their hearts broken each time a ‘welfare’ group decides it knows best and slaughters their charges. And they will continue to help the most vulnerable victims of the animal world – the animals that straddle the divide between cherished pet and persecuted refugee – the unowned cat.