2010 Jul 19

It seemed like a daunting request.  Could we fly approximately 30 homeless feral cats to the Pacific Northwest, then pick up another 15 or so unadoptable cats from shelters and fly them to sanctuaries in California?  The request came while we were busy working in the Gulf 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so at first it seemed out of the question.  But then we did the math ... In addition to saving the lives of these cats and preventing them from producing many more homeless cats, how many wild birds might be spared from death by these cats over the next three years, if we removed these feline predators from their midst?   The geometric series gave a startling answer:  More than TWO MILLION bird lives could be saved!  We came back from the Gulf to California just for this trip, borrowed a friend's airplane, and made this rescue happen! 

We used Glen's Cessna 180, a great old tailwheel airplane that belongs to a great man and longtime friend and cat rescuer himself.  Glen not only offered to let us use his airplane, he and his wife Emily also invited us to stop over at their home in the mountains near Placerville, CA -- with all the kitties!  That really helped the logistics, since weather wasn't going to let us get a good early start on the first day.  We emptied everything out of the Cessna 180 including back seats, and estimated that we could comfortably squeeze in 20 medium-sized cat carriers.  The rescuers brought us 18 crates with 26 cats, and off we went by midday from El Monte, CA, aiming for a small private airstrip near their home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.  Emily had made room for all of the cat carriers right next to the guest room in the lower level of their spacious home.  I fed, watered, and changed the bedding for every carrier and spent time reassuring all the cats -- as much as I could, seeing that these felines were still in the process of learning to like human contact!  Everybody seemed to do fine.

We left early the next morning and made it to all of our destinations in Washington, then headed back toward California with 14 carriers, each filled with a cat who, for various reasons of age, health, or temperament, were not suitable for living in a home and would instead live the rest of their lives in a sanctuary, where they could be comfortable, safe, and receive the medical treatment they need.  We were running from another cold front from the northwest and made it back to the tiny unlighted mountain airstrip near Glen and Emily's home in the mountains just as it was becoming too dark to see it.  The night was deja-vu:  transport all the carriers by car from the airstrip to their home and down to the lower-level guest area, and spend a few hours feeding, watering, and changing the bedding for each kitty.  It may sound like grueling work, but not to people who love rescue work.  It is always a privilege to interact with these blessed animals and see how intelligently they respond to kindness and care.  By the time we returned to southern California the next morning, it had all gone so smoothly that we could hardly believe that we had just transported 40 cats over 2000 miles in two days!  

You probably want us to justify that number of birds saved, right? Okay, Bonny didn't get that Ph.D. for nothing (well, maybe that's still TBD).  Let's keep it general, so that the formula can be appplied to future rescues as well.  Assume we start with 25 unspayed females, each of whom is capable of having a litter of kittens every six months.  On average, each litter could consist of 3 males and 3 females.  Let's just count up the females for now:  After 6 months, there would be the original 25 females, plus 3 new ones from each litter of each of those females --  that's 100 total female feral cats now.  Now, all of these feral female cats will will have another three female kittens the next six months... and on it goes.  After 3 years (six litters from each female), we'll have 25 times 4^6 (= 4x4x4x4x4x4 = 4,096) = 102,400 female feral cats!

But now for the 3 males born in each litter!  In addition to however many males we start with, our 25 ladies will produce 3 new male kittens every six months.  After 3 years, the ladies will have produced  25x3x(1+4+4^2 + 4^3 + 4^4 + 4^5) = 25x4,095 = 102,375 more male feral cats.  That's a total of 204, 775 feral cats after three years (plus however many males we started with)!  

Okay, so how many birds have that quarter-million cats killed in those three years?  How many birds have been killed in those three years?  Ohhh, this is a horror.  But facts are facts, numbers don't lie. If each of these cats kills one bird per week starting at six months of age (probably a vast underestimate), then the total number of birds killed by these feral cats by the end of three years is......2,360,670. That's almost a QUARTER OF A BILLION BIRDS killed in three years!  Maybe On Wings Of Care needs to promote many more rescues of feral cats!