Yesterday I called a man I'm going to call "John Smith" who lives across from Lighthouse Field, and has done most of the trapping for the cats there. John Smith and his daughter have done a great job feeding and working with a lot of the cats in that area, and know most of the cats by name. I called them to ask if they'd seen the female with kittens, but John Smith let me know that there are actually quite a few unaltered community cats living there, and then he invited me over so he could give me a "tour" of sorts.
This evening I met John Smith and his daughter in person at their house, and even got to see the cats they trapped a while ago who've now become friendly enough to pet. All the cats they feed looked happy and healthy, and were living a good life. After he fed them, John Smith and I walked along the edge of the field and he showed me some of the other feeding stations. Apparently one of his neighbors, "Ariel" feeds the cats all along the field. John Smith told me that Ariel doesn't trap the cats, but apparently her daughter does every once in a while.
We walked to one of his other neighbor's house and he introduced me to a nice woman, "Giselle," who lets Ariel feed the cats on her porch. Giselle was hoping that I could find new homes for all of the cats so that they would not be on her porch. Unfortunately no one really wants these cats, so finding new homes is almost impossible. However, I can definitely talk to Ariel about moving the feeding stations.
John Smith explained the cat situation at the field to the best of his knowledge, so between his information and mine, this is what I have gathered:
- There are enough cats in the field that they have gone from just one colony to many sub-colonies.
- There is one grey and white female who keeps having litters of kittens. If she is spayed, the amount of new kittens will decrease significantly.
- No one actually knows how many cats need to be caught, or even how many cats in total there are.
- There are at least three long-haired black cats, and two have been caught.
Now to end with the best part.
When John Smith and I were walking past a feeding station, he noticed a little calico (all calicos are female, so I knew she was a girl). She was a little skinny, but also probably only about a year old. John Smith said he had not seen her before, and it was obvious that she had not been trapped yet. Since he had his own trap, he suggested we set it right there and try to catch her. So we did. He even had some Fancy Feast as bait on hand. We left the trap open and I went home to go out to dinner with my family. I was planning on going back to check the trap and close it if it was empty after dinner, but after only about an hour of the trap being open, I got a call from John Smith saying that the we had caught the little calico!
This little girl is one of the lucky ones. Tomorrow morning she'll be spayed, vaccinated, tested, and ear-tipped, thanks to Project Purr's program with the Animal Hospital of Soquel. She'll then spend the night in recovery, and Friday morning she'll be released back into the field. For her entire life she'll have food and water provided for her, and she will never have to go through the stress of having kittens. She'll live a long, healthy life, and who knows? Maybe she'll warm up to people someday, and someone will take her home. But either option is good, and she'll be happy either way. And this makes me very, very happy.
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