Feral Cats Deserve a Chance, Too

Hines Veterans Hospital is a sprawling medical complex on the outskirts of Chicago.

At one time, the grounds hosted a racecar track and an airstrip. Charles Lindbergh flew mail runs out of an old hanger located here. This multi-acre facility contains numerous buildings, fields, trees, bushes, and hedges. A forest preserve and a few large cemeteries surround it.

It’s the perfect place for wild animals to visit, linger on, and make their homes in amidst the ever-increasing destruction of their natural habitat due to the never-ending expansion of urban sprawl.

On any given day, cardinals, hawks, ducks, geese, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, opossums, and skunks can be found on the hospital’s grounds. Occasionally, an anxious coyote is spotted dashing across the complex. Finally, numerous feral felines have made this facility their home.

All of these creatures have one thing in common - they are simply trying to survive.

Periodically, a raccoon, an opossum, or a skunk burrows under one of the hospital buildings to make a new home. Groundskeepers usually ignore these non-rent paying tenants until one of the skunks ‘deodorizes’ a building and someone complains.

When this happens, traps are set to catch and remove these uninvited guests. Unfortunately, these traps do not discriminate. Wild animals of all types, even the most gentle, are disposed of and destroyed.

Over the years, many feral cats have moved into these old burrows under the buildings. Female cats have their litters underground and eventually move on to find more suitable quarters.

Recently, several of my co-workers and I had the opportunity to meet two adorable little waifs who didn’t seem to be in too big of a rush to vacate their newly found home.

Several years prior, we had placed a bird feeder and birdbath out on our office building’s porch. Our offerings of free food and water usually enticed a variety of beautiful songbirds to visit us.

Shortly before Thanksgiving Day, we also attracted two of the cutest predators you’ve ever seen. Two gorgeous silver and black kittens, one shorthaired, the other longhaired, appeared on the porch to stalk these songbirds.

We immediately started leaving food out for these ferocious young hunters, hoping their appetite for sparrow or finch could be curtailed. We also soon discovered that these kittens were living directly under our office building, and their mother had vanished.

We soon began our practice of placing food near their den entrance, and we enjoyed watching our two little feline friends come and go as they pleased.

As winter approached, these two kittens would emerge from their cozy little den less and less frequently. We knew they were still under the building, however, since our free food deliveries were being devoured daily, and tiny feline paw prints traversed the snow.Our feral friends seemed content enough, and most of us in the building enjoyed having them as non-rent paying tenants.

Everything was going smoothly until a terrible blizzard hit the area soon after New Year’s Day. Twenty-three inches of snow fell over the weekend, and several of us became very concerned about the welfare of our two little furball friends.

I was concerned enough to visit the office that miserable sub-zero Sunday morning to check on them. When I finally reached the building, I was horrified to discover that snowplows had deposited a massive hill of snow directly over the kittens’ burrow entrance.

I tried to dig it out, but the weather had turned extremely frigid, and the enormous mounds of snow had quickly turned into an impenetrable hill of ice. After several minutes, I disgustedly gave up. I couldn’t uncover the entrance.

I also began to worry that our two little friends had been buried alive. I decided to head down into the building’s basement to determine if I could hear the two cats scratching at the walls or crying out in despair.

With flashlight in hand, I searched every room in the basement and continuously listened for any sounds or noises. Nothing. Just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small hatch leading to the building’s long narrow crawl space. I cautiously pried it open.

I was both relieved and delighted at what I discovered. Our two little orphans, whom we had named Fritz and Furball, were patiently sitting by that hatch entrance, as if they had been expecting me.

They were also extremely hungry. I gave them some food and water and watched them eagerly devour every last morsel. When they were finished, they slowly and quietly retreated back into the deepest recesses of that dark musty crawl space.

After that day of discovery, someone in our animal loving group visited Fritz and Furball on a daily basis and brought them frequent care packages. Although they would never let any of us touch them, they seemed to enjoy our human visits almost as much as we humans enjoyed their company.

Fritz, the smaller, shorthaired cat, although curious about his human benefactors, remained quite shy and aloof. Furball, however, anxiously ran toward us whenever we delivered his latest meal. He was a joy to behold as he grunted and groaned in delight at every bite, as if he were dining in the most elegant of gourmet restaurants.

By spring, we decided that our two little friends had been living underground long enough. I soon contacted Operating Room Nurse Kathy, who is definitely a cat person, too. In fact, she’s one of my heroes. She’s rescued dozens of stray felines from the hospital grounds.

She quickly brought a live trap over to the building and placed some cat food in it for our two little crawl space critters. By the next morning, the smaller, shorthaired one was safely trapped. Fritz was placed in a makeshift pen in the basement and the trap was re-set for Furball.

By the following morning, our other feral feline was safely caught. Nurse Kathy picked them both up and whisked them home for a much needed flea bath, a good brushing, and a trip to her veterinarian for neutering and required vaccinations.

I’m confident these two little feline friends of ours will happily live out their lives with Nurse Kathy. She has more than a dozen of these rescued cats in and around her property, and she treats each and every one of them like royalty.

She truly is one of the great ‘cat persons’ of all time.

©2003 Excerpt from Curious Creatures – Wondrous Waifs, My Life with Animals by Ed Kostro