Tracking cats

As promised, the story of the elusive feral cat.

Toward the end of the program, the topic veered from the ranger's childhood in Cuba to her experiences working at Bahia Honda State Park. She discussed the joys of being on call 24 hours a day - fixing water leaks, helping people who can't follow directions open the gate to the park, and repairing electrical connections. You'll recall that The Man No One Agrees With used this last topic to bring up hurricane damage in the park.

That led to the ranger commenting that the animals in the park weathered the hurricane very well - including butterflies (amazing!) and feral cats. The ranger said these cats are very smart - they will approach people to procure handouts of food, but they won't visit a trap. She joked that they must have learned to read.

One woman in the audience indicated that she might have seen evidence of one of these cats. She was in the campground and saw some tracks. She initially thought they were fox tracks because they were side-by-side instead of in a line. (Or the other way around, I can't remember. I tried to educate myself about the orientation of canine prints vs. feline prints, but the internet wouldn't tell me. I found lots of information about the difference in the shapes of the prints, but not whether they were side-by-side or in a line. It leads me to think that's not a reliable identifier, but what do I know?)

So she thinks she's following fox tracks. "Then I saw a tiny, tiny paw print." This part of the story was puzzling to me. What was she following before if this tiny paw print is the first she's seen? And the tiny, tiny brings to mind a story I liked as a kid.

Anyway, this tiny paw print somehow convinced this woman that it was a cat, not a fox. And now with this additional information from the ranger, this woman has realized that it wasn't just an ordinary cat, but a feral cat. She was quite impressed with herself and her tracking abilities.

G and I were quite amused because we, too, were convinced that there were feral cats in the park. Just that very night we had heard meowing from the bushes. And last time we camped there, we had actually shared our campsite with a cat.

A feral cat.