Meow Without the Me: 'Cat City' | Green Film Festival of San Francisco 2024
Are feral community cats neighbors or nuisances?
Dear Moviegoers,
Allergies to felines aside, the documentary Cat City did little to sway my feelings either way on the issue of open and roaming community cats. From time to time, I enjoy stories of how people from decades ago would deal with strays in rather colorful ways, and I am a supporter of animal health & welfare programs, but in my neighborhood? Outside my home? They’re a minor annoyance to me if anything, and a film about Chicago’s efforts to live with and/or control their own cat population was never going to register with my general opinions.
However, Cat City works best as a portrait of the people on the ground, doing their best to help the animals by whatever methods and laws allow. TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) programs are discussed at length as a solution to contain and maintain these feral and sometimes friendly animals. We see everyday and relatively average individuals team together to advocate and to take action on behalf of the cats and for their neighbors who prefer to have them around. There are no “cat ladies” in Cat City, just certified caretakers and elderly feeders.
The flipside is presented by a few scientists, data collectors, and bird watchers, who refer to cats as “invasive” to the surrounding environment. Only at the end, with a monologue by a researcher, is any kind of middle ground stated. For its duration, Cat City is all personality, much like a, well, cat. There’s fun, there’s yearning, there’s genuine sentimentality, and there’s real-world depiction - showing the situation for what it is without dressing anything up. Unlike a cat though, the film has no claws, presenting its tale of two kinds of people more like a foreign novelty and less like a resource for connecting with others.
Sure, we see plenty of cats, and we see plenty of trapping action. Sure, we get to know some of the individuals and groups helping out and what their missions are. And sure, there’s some little talk as to how TNR policies can be detrimental. It’s all just not enough. More information? Maybe. More people? Ok. More cats? We have our fill, thank you.
Cat City appears to strive for understanding across the animal rights spectrum, but it doesn’t show a passion for the issue or provide a reason for its importance other than that some communities are somewhat involved. I wish the documentary was as excited about anything else as it is about capturing footage of cute cats. Anything else would’ve been welcome. It’s still cute though. 2.5/5
Cat City is screening at the 2024 Green Film Festival of San Francisco. The film can be viewed on their virtual portal until October 27th.
The average lifespan of an indoors-only feline is about three times that of cats allowed to roam outdoors, not to mention the notable absence of outdoors-related injury.
Please, always chest-harness your cat if you walk it outdoors. If you won’t do it for the vulnerable wildlife potentially killed by your roaming cat, then please do it for your also-very-vulnerable cat’s sake. … Of course, completely denying one's cat outdoors access should be compensated by giving their feline additional affection/attention.
Meantime, I was greatly saddened when told by the non-profit Surrey Community Cat Foundation via email that, “Our TNR program is not operating. There are no volunteers that are interested in trapping and there is no place to recover the cats after surgery until they can be returned to a site with a feeding station. … Our spay/neuter program is operating and the need for funding is always needed to keep the program running. Always more need than funding available.”
And then leave it to classic human hypocrisy to despise and even shoot or poison those same suffering cats for naturally feeding on smaller prey while municipal governments and many area residents mostly permit the feral cat populations to explode — along with the resultant feline suffering within:
Surrey, B.C. has an estimated 36,000 feral/stray cats, very many of which suffer severe malnourishment, debilitating injury and/or infection. That number was about six years ago. I was informed four years later by the local cat charity (Surrey Community Cat Foundation) that, if anything, their “numbers would have increased, not decreased” since then.
Yet that city's municipal government, as well as some aware yet uncaring residents, did little or nothing to help with the local non-profit trap/neuter/release program, regardless of its (and others’) documented success in reducing the needlessly great suffering. Clearly, along with individual people, society collectively can also be cruel toward felines.