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The little cat in the great big OUT April is a feral cat who lives behind a Burger King. Dumped as a tiny kitten, she has been fed for two years by Jeanne Smith, who continues to hope she can catch April and take her home. |
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The little cat in the great big OUT April is a feral cat who lives behind a Burger King. Dumped as a tiny kitten, she has been fed for two years by Jeanne Smith, who continues to hope she can catch April and take her home. |
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April and her four litter mates were dumped in a wooded area behind a Burger King on or about December 2, 1997. They were about 5 weeks old, and eating out of the trash can at the back of the parking lot. When approached, they ran. Fearful that they would venture into the lot and be hit, a friend of mine, (Aunti Melly) provided a large plastic-covered wooden box and placed it back among the trees, so that the kittens would have some cover and shelter. This became the feeding station. As all of Mel's traps had been loaned to people who had not returned them, she was unable to try to trap them for several months, but kept feeding daily.From time to time, when she couldn't make it, I fed them. When the traps were finally returned, in March, I began to try to trap. The kittens were now about five months old. They were trap-shy, and it was frustrating.
For weeks, I had no luck. The first one that I caught was a small tuxedo male, We called him Julius. Four days later, we trapped a beautiful blue- eyed crossbreed calico-Siamese. We called her Thai Wan Ahn. The next night, we trapped an orange male. We called him Shannon. And after that, the last two wouldn't go near the trap. There remained a gray tabby, (we thought a male) and a tiny tuxedo female that had been the friendliest of all. I had named her April.
I don't remember when I took over the feeding. When I am sick, which is not often, Mel feeds them.
We took the three that we had rescued to the vet for shots and surgery, to learn that Thai Wan Ahn, estimated by the doctor to be barely 7 months old, was about 45 days pregnant. She was aborted and spayed. Shannon tested positive for the feline AIDS virus. Julius was in good health. Shannon is in a 1-cat household. He is an IN cat. Prognosis is good. He does not seem to have full blown AIDS. His hobby, I'm told, is eating.
We continued to feed and try to trap, and nobody would come near the trap. Sometime near the end of June, we estimate, April had a litter of kittens. She had disappeared for almost a week, and I was frantic. I had not known that she was pregnant, and I had been hoping that she, like Julius, whom she resembles, was a male. (Originally, we had called him June) We did not see the kittens for two months, and we estimated their age from their size.
April's gray sibling disappeared. I later learned that his feeding time had changed. He was now coming out after midnight. We call him Chaucer, and we see him only if we are there very late at night.
In September, I rescued ten kittens, some April's, some just dumped, from the Burger King site. I feel sure that they cannot all be hers. Two of the males were older than the ones that I knew to be hers, and two more I believed were dumped separately. Because one of the males, a little tabby and white baby that we called Winston, did not survive neutering, we have waited, and will wait until June, to neuter the remaining four, another male and four females. We keep them separated, of course. The vet told us that Winston had a bad reaction to the anesthesia, and went into shock. They lost him.
April comes to be fed twice a day, and within the last month or so, someone has dumped a young orange and white male at the BK site. He eats with her, and I suspect that there will be orange and white kittens this year. He did go into the trap once, and it went off prematurely, and he took off.
Recently we saw a young black cat, but it is shy, and we have seen it only 3 times in 6 weeks. Other cats appear from time to time, and we feed them too.
Last year 5 raccoons showed up one night, and scared the dickens out of us. They looked like a gang of burglars.
We called the newcomer Forrest, because he came out of the woods. He and April have begun to come within a couple of feet of me when I fix their lunches. I hope that I will soon begin to handle them, so that I can take them home. They avoid the trap, and there is too much brush to use a net. Two of the kittens did come right up to me to be picked up. Serena and Charlie. Charlie's already home, and Serena will join him after she is spayed. I hated to separate them, even for a short time, because they are very close, but Charlie's mommy brings him to play, and that helps. They play tag and wrestle all over the place. I am sure that Serena is April's daughter, but I am equally sure that Charlie is not her son. He was at least a month older than the others. Fancy, also larger, appears to be mostly color point shorthair. At first we thought that he was white, but when we got him home, we saw that he has pale orange points, and big blue eyes. Sable and Sassy appear to be siblings, but probably not April's. Winston(RB) and Clemmie we are sure are April's. Snapper too. Also Chelsey. Kittens are easier to place than cats, but none of it is without a struggle. I'm not sure how many April had. I know that it was a large litter, especially for a first litter. We suspect that her elusive gray sibling is the father.
The BK parking lot and the grove behind it are not a good or safe place for these cats. It is illegal in this state to abandon animals, but these people never seem to get caught.
I intend to keep trying for as long as it takes.
NEWS BREAK:
On April 3, Jeanne caught April after two years of trying! April is pregnant, but this litter will be born in safety. Jeanne now has to capture Forrest -- and convince April that life with humans isn't as horrible as she thinks it is.
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Jeanne Smith, a writer who
lives in New Jersey, has been feeding and fostering feral cats for about eight
years. Her book "Merlyn" has had rave reviews, even though there's
not a cat in it, something her own cats hope she will rectify in her next
book. Jeanne can often be found in the newsgroup rec.pets.cats.community a whimsical group where everything is examined from the cats' point of view. |
Jeanne Smith Jeanne's e-mail |
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