Editorial: The case for carnivores

Last week I read in the NRHEG Star Eagle that the city of Ellendale is considering sterilizing (and microchipping) all of the stray cats in their community. While I can well believe that stray cats could be viewed as a “nuisance,” I wondered whether this would turn into a case of getting what you asked for and regretting it.

 

Soon after I moved back to the New Richland area, I saw an orange cat slink out of the woods in our yard. It was a stray cat that no one wanted, and that is perhaps not so strange. Having grown up in the wild, the cat would never be happy loafing around indoors on a sofa, or chasing trinkets with bells across a carpet. But I grew up with outdoor cats. As a child I spent hours coaxing “feral” cats out of hiding. I soon had this one eating kitty food on the porch. Naturally, he didn't trust anyone else. I encouraged my husband to feed him, so the cat wouldn't split and run every time he opened the front door.

 

My toddler was terrified of the cat, which I learned one wintry day when I went to throw out the remains of a melon in the woods. I thought Logan would follow me, but he hung back, afraid to follow. He was also too scared to go back up on the porch. I could only surmise that it was because the cat was there. When I returned from my short jaunt to the woods, I found him with his back against the side of the house, crying. The situation resolved itself with familiarity.

 

Of course, the cat wandered. Once, my family and I had walked to the end of the driveway when I saw the cat, perhaps a quarter mile off, wandering toward some other farmyard beyond. I called to him. He turned on a dime, walking back as though he had never thought of leaving.

 

He liked the company. Daily, he took up residence on the picture windowsill to watch what the humans were doing. He loved it if someone came out on the porch to pet him.

 

The cat had seen better days. He wouldn't tolerate being picked up, although he loved attention. At times his fur was matted when he returned from his wanderings, and at some point in his life, he'd lost his fangs.

 

I didn't realize then that, all the time I was taking care of him, he was taking care of me. I'd started gardening shortly after we moved. Logan looked at the seed catalog, and begged for red potatoes, rainbow carrots, and popcorn. I never thought of rabbits, mice, or raccoons attacking my plants or produce. They didn't.

 

One evening, the cat brought me a present. I opened the screen door, shrieked and let it slam to again. Right in front of the screen door was a rabbit head, neatly arranged to face the door, the body oozing blood nearby. When I'd gotten over my surprise, I assured the cat that he could keep the rabbit. He pulled it off the porch into the milkweed patch and ate it himself.

Ever since I've wondered how he overpowered the rabbit without any fangs. He didn't let his handicap stop him.

 

The cat graced our lives for a couple of years. Even my son learned to love him. It lasted until one evening when I noticed the cat had returned from a lengthier excursion. I went out the back door where he stood shivering, emaciated, clearly sick, his fur covered in sticky poison from nose to tail that he'd ingested in trying to clean it off. There was nothing I could do for him. He was too far gone. I fetched a towel to keep him warm, and sat on the ground in my bathrobe. I couldn't pick him up; in his condition it would have been excruciating. I couldn't take him indoors to warm him; that would have terrified him. All I could do was keep him company.

 

And the next day, somehow, I had to explain to my three-year-old why the orange cat was never coming back.

 

Ever since that day, gardening has become a ridiculous challenge. I've used up rolls of fencing, and still the rabbits find something to destroy, including my son's flowers, the mice eat my tomatoes, and the raccoons, squirrels, and skunks make short work of any corn I try to grow. It becomes a choice between setting traps that I absolutely do not want in my garden or littering the landscape with bullet casings, all to do something the cat accomplished mostly by his sheer presence.

 

Cats, which were once commonplace when I was a child, have now taken on the exotic quality of a Big Foot sighting; everyone runs to the window to see before it disappears.

 

I've written this journey down memory lane not as a memoir, but to make a point. Like the wolves of Yellowstone National Park, whose presence was so vital that it rebalanced the once sick ecosystem and changed the course of the Yellowstone River, the four-footed, carnivorous predators, the cats, coyotes, and foxes that wander our alleys, woods, and fields, are unreasonably maligned. If we destroy them, or otherwise banish them from our midst, we are creating a bigger problem. Most people can't seem to despise predator animals enough, but, if there's one thing reading the news has taught me, it's that there's usually another side to the story. This is the other side of the story. Somehow, in the security of obtaining all our food from the grocery store, we have forgotten the vital role that these creatures played in our lives; they kept prey animals in check, and even raccoons give them a wide berth. About the time when we tire of hearing skittering in the walls, when skunks live under the porch, raccoons raid the trash cans, and squirrels dig up the planters, we may remember why we once happily shared the space with carnivorous predators.