the Feral Cats of an Exotic African Island
by Jack Couffer
It was lovely to re-visit this book. I would not change one word of what I said on it eleven years ago. Delightful and intriguing account of a study on feral cats the author delved into while living as an expat on Lamu Island (off the coast of Kenya). What I found more interesting this time around, that I don\’t think I mentioned before: more tidbits of culture, like how the author felt he had to hire a housekeeper and then a cook, because that\’s simply how it was done on the island. The letter he includes that his housekeeper wrote to him when he was back living in America, is so different in syntax it takes concentration to read as if the person who wrote it thinks in different patterns.
5 Responses
This really sounds good. My only experience with feral cats was back in the early fifties when my grandparents had a bunch of them around as \”barn cats.\” They were pretty scary to any kid who dared approach them, but if we spotted kittens in the barn, we couldn't resist…and many times paid the price.
It is a really wonderful book. I read from the last one that kittens have to be socialized to people between two and four weeks of age, or they will never become tamed.
Oops- actually, it's four and eight weeks.
That's probably the problem we had. They got no socialization at all unless all the cousins gathered at my grandparents' farm for some holiday or family event. Poor things were probably terrified by us trying to pick them up.
I bet it went both ways. Even little kitten claws and teeth can really hurt!