Today I when I took the photo of the black cat you see up there, I didn’t think much about it. But at home I started to wonder if it’s the same cat that I photographed five days ago. Honestly, I believe they’re different cats. I took the photos like 5 kilometers apart, which doesn’t tell us anything as they probably roam around a lot but I still think they look different. What do you say? Is it the same cat or a different cat?
Diary of Dennis 
I can’t be sure as the other photo is not as detailed. 5km is a bit of a distance but they do roam great distances. It may be a different cat though because most likely there is a lot of interbreeding amongst the feral cats so you would get a lot with similar features.
Yep. It’s really hard to tell with single-colored cats, especially black ones. And yes, with the other picture I was too far away. Just one thing is sure… I think I found the cats paradise… lots of hedges or overgrown and abandoned garden plots… many birds and most likely a lot of mice… some people that feed the cats and so on.
I am amazed by how many cats I can find there. So far I found 3 at the minimum per day within 1-2 hours. In another garden area, I had no luck.
It does sound like cat paradise. I wonder how they get on in winter there?
I am asking myself the same question since a while. The last winters haven’t been extremely cold anymore but I think it cannot be excluded that we get these winters again.
There are a lot of abandoned garden shacks but if they don’t make use of them, I am not sure how they could get even through a mild winter. Even with a mild winter, it can be pretty cold during the nights. I’ve read now that when they’re always outside, they’ll develop a strong fur before winter. I’ve now discovered in an article that healthy cats with developed winter fur can resist -20 degrees. That would make them get through a German/European winter. One article author states it’s all about the developed fur and about the condition of the cat. But wet fur is not good as it doesn’t dry easily of course.
Remains the problem with food and water. Of course, water can be frozen and food not easily accessible. It’s just quick research right now but I have three articles open now and the authors say when you suspect cats at a certain spot, it’ll help them through the winter if you regularly place water and food. I will do more detailed research on this as I asked myself the same question the last days.
Cheapo food bowls just cost one Euro, water comes free out of the wall and dry food is super cheap as well… as I get a feel for where the spots with a high amount of cats in this area are, I can imagine establishing a feeding site during winter that I refill a few times a week. I barely exercise during winter and walking is exercise too. And I like cats and photography… so, I’d be interested in doing this. That particular area isn’t far away from home anyway.
I’ve seen already garden owners that placed food bowls in front of their plots and I also saw stray cats there. So, some people already help them, which is great.
Another garden owner told me it’s a dilemma, he understands people want to help the feral cats, on the other side the whole problem with too many cats is getting more and more out of hand.
I think it would be a good thing to do as it might prevent the cats from starving and maybe protect the wildlife a bit if they don’t need to hunt as much. Regarding the growing population that is a big problem. When I was working in the railyard in Adelaide there were a lot of feral cats and one of the train drivers used to catch them, take them to be desexed and then return them if they were very wild. He would try to rehome any kittens. That way they get to live their lives but can’t add to the stray population. Of course you would need a cooperative vet who would give a good rate for the operations and probably to find a way to fund raise for the operations but I think it is a good solution that doesn’t harm the cats. Otherwise the city will eventually decide to cull them or someone may start putting out baits which would be very dangerous.
Just two days ago I’ve read an article of a local new website and they claimed that the local animal welfare has volunteers that regularly check feeding stations and/or catch cats and take them to the vets who agreed to help. But the article was about how big of a problem the population has become and that they can’t keep up anymore with the increasing population and they expect that we will have Turkish conditions (maybe you saw that on YouTube or here on WordPress once, they have thousands of cats living on the streets) in the future if the local authorities don’t counteract with more support and money.
So, the article was about exactly the same you mentioned. And I agree with you that this is a good solution. But according to the mentioned article, it seems that the authorities want to learn it the hard way (like so often in other areas, here local authorities seem to think you can wait it out, lol).
It’s not the first time people scatter rat poison against dogs or cats in some of the districts. Never knew why people have done this but it was quite often in the local news… maybe it has something to do with it… which is why I believe you are right… sadly some nasty locals will probably take it in their own hands and scatter food with rat poison in an attempt to kill the cats.
Local authorities never want to spend money on such things and if they do it will be a cull. Something will have to be done to prevent people from laying baits because it will affect pet cats and dogs, wildlife and even children if it is not prevented. Feral cats is a problem everywhere and I believe that eventually the laws governing pet cats will become much stricter because of it. You and I already observe these rules voluntarily of course. The sad thing is that while the problem needs to be dealt with people like us also think about the welfare of the cats who don’t deserve to suffer for doing what comes naturally to them.
Definitely different
I am pretty sure about this too.