Often colonies on our waiting list increase in number before we ever get out
to help with TNR. Such was the case with Puma and her three almost grown
kittens. Puma produced a single tiny black kitten in early August, the week
before we arrived with traps to start TNR. Puma (so named because she
resembled a black mountain lion) lived with her "family" on a beautiful,
tall deck with a sheltered alcove at one end. In the alcove were a box with
clean towels to sleep in and bowls of ample food. She had it made!
When we arrived with our traps we quickly caught two of the kittens (Long
Legs and Fuzz Ball - the males) because they had had their food withheld
overnight. Puma and Mittens, her other grown kitten, left the deck and we
were able to examine the tiny new kitten in the box - a little black female
whose eyes were just opening, as rotund and heathy as any kitten could hope
to be.
Puma and Mittens (the females) did not fall for the traps! Overnight we
caught one racoon. The following morning, after the two cats had been 36
hours without food in their bowls, we gave up on the regular traps and
rigged our drop trap at the far end of the deck where the kitten's box was
located. We situated ourselves about 40 feet away, sitting motionless,
sweltering in the August heat. The cats could not leave the deck without
running past us, so they chose to hide behind the flower pots, Puma checking
on her tiny baby in the box every once in a while. We always ask God for
help on these missions, but our prayers were becoming more urgent than usual
as the sweat ran down our faces and dripped off our chins while we gripped
the 40 foot length of twine we were poised to yank.
Sometimes
our
prayers are answered in an exquisitely beautiful way ---- and this time the
answer came in the form of a blue swallowtail butterfly. It flitted from
flower pot to flower pot while the cats watched, and then it sailed into the
trap and landed in the bowl of cat food! Mittens took an eternity of
creeping before she darted into the trap. There was no time to wait for her
to settle at the food bowl. There was just a momentary window of opportunity
before she and the butterfly would be gone again --- but we caught her in
that moment. During the ensuing excitement, Puma escaped from the deck, but
Mittens had to submit to moving out of the trap through a little door and
into a cat carrier. In the peace following the furor, we lifted the trap and
the blue swallowtail flew free, unharmed! We were speechless with awe over
such a dramatic answer to prayer. We had met an angel in the form of a
butterfly.
Epilogue
Puma moved her tiny baby that afternoon and never returned to her three
grown kittens, who still live in luxury on their mountain deck. Instead, she
set up housekeeping on a porch not far away. Her little black kitten was
discovered soaking wet in a rain-filled "chiminy" when she was about 4 weeks
old. The people who lived there gently dried and bedded her in a cozy box on
the porch. Puma approved of her baby's new people and continued to nurse her
there. When "Lucy" was 6 weeks old, she was moved indoors by her people to
be a permanent house cat. We were finally able to trap and spay Puma in
January, 6 months after we started out on this TNR adventure. She and Lucy
look at each other through the front window of the house they call home ---
each of them content with her own feline life-style.
