Wildlife: Domesticated and Not
TWO NIGHTS AGO, FOR THE SECOND NIGHT IN A ROW, our cat Pesto brought a live bat into our house, set it free, and followed it from room to room as the bat searched frantically for an exit. At one point, the bat caught its breath hanging upside down from the cathedral ceiling in our family room. (Please, no bat guano on our beige couch, I prayed.) We eventually opened the patio door and the bat’s next dip and swoop led it back into the dark. Last night, the cat and bat game took longer to resolve. Tony and I actually went to bed while the bat still hung from the ceiling. It was gone this morning.
We hope there is no Act Three.
A quick Internet search—“how to get a bat out of your house”—suggests that you call Animal Control. Otherwise, try to confine the bat to one room and open the windows, “hold a broom upright and guide the bat toward the exit,” can it, or smother it with a blanket. Where Pesto finds the bats is a mystery, though we suspect he has discovered a bat colony in the large blue spruce tree next to our garage and waits for fledglings to test their wings.
Actually, this is not the first feline-wildlife encounter that has occurred since we moved to Ashland last spring. A month ago, Pesto’s partner in crime, Buna (which means coffee in Amharic), entered the house with a blue jay half her size and half alive. We put it in a cardboard box and it died the next day.
Tony and I belong to the cat strata, though we like dogs, too, but never longed to walk one. A week before we moved from Rhode Island to Brooklyn, a coyote snagged our 14-year-old cat, Google. We arrived in Brooklyn cat-less for the first time in our life. We figured we were done with cats and we didn’t want to add roommates to our three-room apartment which already felt small. What were we doing a few months later, then, in a pet store in Williamsburg that collected stray kittens? Our not-yet daughter-in-law, also a cat lover, lured us there. An hour later we walked out with two kitties—five weeks old, abandoned though unrelated, and, according to the pet store owner, inseparable.
After a round of ringworm (which sent us to the dermatologist), we all adjusted. Captives of a fourth-floor apartment, Pesto knocked over whatever he could and Buna leapt through the air catching flies. Tony built them an outdoor enclosure of wire and wood, off the door to our roof, and the two spent hours eyeing up birds and squirrels. One day a raccoon came to visit.
Figuring they were indoor cats, we didn’t let them outside when we moved to Ashland. Tony drew up plans for a cat palace, approachable through our bathroom window, where Pesto and Buna could climb and safely admire the wild life. (You can google “outdoor cat structures” to see what’s possible.)
Pesto and Buna had their own idea. The moment we left the front door open for more than a few minutes, they escaped. They have been outdoor cats ever since.
Alas, Buna’s affair with blue jays did not end with that first fateful encounter. Ten days later, she came screaming through the cat door at 5 am and hid in the bedroom closet, buried in my best scarves. She did not leave the closet for three days, though she accepted nourishment, affection, and a litter box. She wasn’t hurt, just traumatized.
Could she have been dive bombed by blue jays, avenging the death of kin? Just before Buna rushed in, Tony had heard the cacophony of angry jays. Again, the Internet had an answer (yes, blue jays do dive bomb cats) and YouTube had the visuals: “My Cat Attacked by Blue Jay!” “Cat Attacks Blue Jay, Blue Jay Wins.”
On the fourth day, Buna left the closet as if nothing had happened and ran outdoors. A week later, she caught another jay in the back yard. This time, Pesto intervened and the jay flew away, uninjured. What was Buna thinking? Apparently, not much.
On the other hand, the encounters we feared between our cats and wildlife have not materialized. The deer who stroll into our backyard from the meadow and forests beyond come to eat the pansies and day lilies. The cats watch them from a few feet away; the deer couldn’t care less.
In the Rhode Island suburb where we lived, coyotes were a common presence. Indeed, we lost two cats to coyotes. We have yet to see or hear a coyote here.
One night Tony saw a large black bear standing on the curb as he drove up our street, lined with houses. There have been cougar sightings, too. A sign on the hiking trail near us, created by Ashland middle school students, advises:
STOP: Never approach a bear or cougar at any time for any reason.
STAY CALM: Face the bear or cougar and do not run. Running encourages it to chase.
APPEAR LARGE: Make yourself look large. Do not bend over or crouch down. Raise your hands. Hold your coat open. Hold small children.
FIGHT BACK :Fight back if attacked.
MAKE NOISE: Make noise while hiking to reduce the chance of surprising a bear or cougar.
KEEP CHILDREN CLOSE: Always keep children close by and in sight.
AVOID WALKING/HIKING ALONE
It is my guess that neither cats nor humans are preferred prey. A Google search of “bear attacking cat” turns up You Tube videos of the opposite: “Kitten Attacks Bear in the Backyard,” “Cat vs. Bear. Cat Comes Out on Top.” This June, the local newspaper, the Mail Tribune, reported a rise in bear sightings in downtown Ashland. A mamma bear with her cubs were the repeat stars, appearing in trees in Lithia Park near the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in one family’s garage and another man’s bedroom, on a backyard deck (where their frolicking was recorded by the owner’s surveillance camera).
There has also been an uptick in cougar encounters downtown. Here, the story is darker. For years, Ashland’s tolerant deer policy has supported a resident deer population that nibbles on weeds and sidewalk gardens and rests on lawns. A yet-to-be determined disease is weakening some of the deer and the cougars are on to it. Twice this summer, residents have come across cougars feasting on deer.
Back to cats and bats. Tonight did, indeed, bring an Act Three. This time, Tony was ready. The cats come and go through a small cat door in a window in our garage, which then leads them to a cat entrance in the door between our family room and the garage. (Don’t ask why.) Tony uses the garage for his workshop. Last night, he purposely hung out there and when Pesto popped into the garage with yet another bat, Tony cut him off, opened the garage door, and the bat flew out.
Tomorrow night, we will lock Pesto inside.
I am happy to report that the cats haven’t bothered the goldfish in our front pond.
“He [the cat] always has an alibi and one or two to spare.” – T.S. Eliot
NOTE: According to a study by the Smithsonian Conservatory Biology Institute, over 2.4 billion birds are killed annually by cats in the U.S, though cats will only kill birds during the cat’s first years of life, when they are agile enough to prance on them, which is why birds count as only 10 percent of their usual prey. Two out of three of these birds were killed by farm, strays and colony cats; domesticated and owned pets accounted for the rest. One study suggests that a cat in a village will kill an average of 14 birds per year, while a cat in the city will kill two.
Cats kill an estimated 250,000 bats annually; since research on the subject is scarce, this figure is likely a massive underestimation. Bats are the only mammals capable of self-powered flight and account for about one in five of all mammals living on the planet.
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