Katie Fitzgerald says she's fallen for the charms of cats and kittens, including trapping stray ones. Photo: RNZ / Katie Fitzgerald
As a teen, I once slipped in a rabbit hole in a field. I was chasing one of my sisters and she saw it coming, I didn't. It's true of most rabbit holes that you never see them coming, one moment you're having a great time and suddenly you're on your ass and your sister is laughing at you.
The largest rabbit hole I ever encountered snuck up on me while I was out on my bike. It wasn't a physical one but more the metaphor, something you fall in and don't realise you've fallen until you look up and realise, you're at the bottom.
On Christmas Eve 2018, I was out on my bike when I noticed a flash of movement beside the road. It was a small cat, and not a well-cared for one. It was clear what I had to do: go home, get materials and get that cat. Less than an hour later, I was back with a large plastic tub, some fishing wire and a can of cat food. It was starting to drizzle, but I barely noticed as I rigged up a Looney Tunes-esque box and wire system. Within minutes, a tiny ginger kitten emerged from the bushes and snuck into the box. I pulled the trip wire, and she was stuck.
What I didn't realise when I pulled that wire was that it was 'kitten season', the time of year when stray cats come forth and multiply. Trapping that cat set me on a journey that would last more than a year and cost me a fair amount of money (and cause a significant amount of stress).
The kitten I caught was thin and watery-eyed. She was deeply upset at being captured. After taking her home, I borrowed a local rescue's cat trap so I could capture another kitten I'd spotted. That kitten was tougher to catch; it took me 10 days of trying, with multiple different traps. I got good at hopping the fence (and covered myself in bruises) trying to find better spots for the trap. I bought my own traps and gave every single cat I spotted a name. At one point, I called my partner in tears, bemoaning the fact I was being outsmarted by an animal that wasn't even three months old. I finally caught that cat late one night, after setting up a manual trip wire on the trap and spending longer than I would like out alone in the dark.
Katie Fitzgerald will always remember that day when she stumbled upon a tiny, bony, sniffly ginger kitten on the street. Photo: RNZ / Katie Fitzgerald
The kittens weren't the end of it, there were adult cats too. I had no chance of rehoming them, but I could get them desexed. The months that followed became a blur. I spent many hours sitting in the dark staring at traps. The adults continued to breed while I was trying to catch them, and I ended up with more stories to tell. My friend tried to help and a feral cat bit deep into her palm, which was when we learned how important it is to get antibiotics after cat bites. I ended up with my own course of antibiotics after grabbing a kitten that sunk every claw and tooth it could into my hand. Pop-up tents full of kittens took up every space in my flat while I tried to find a cat rescue to take them. I became insufferable at work, colleagues rolling their eyes as I asked if anyone wanted a cat for the millionth time.
Eventually, the flow slowed. Or at least, the flow of kittens and cats from that specific place did. It's been years since a kitten was spotted there. Three adult cats live there now and are still monitored to see if more show up. As things slowed down, I finally chose to look up and realised how deep I had fallen down the hole. The animals I was dealing with were often sick, underfed and unloved. Every time I saw one, I saw a creature that humans had let down. I'd been consumed with stopping them from ever being forgotten, but only when the mission ended did I realise how far I went.
I don't trap as much anymore, but it still feels like my ankles are down in that hole. More than one cat has ended up spayed because of my intervention, and I don't think I'll ever stop being that annoying 'oh that's a cute kitten, did you desex and microchip it?' person. It's just very hard to forget the tiny, bony, sniffly ginger that appeared into my life one day. Maybe that's because every night when I make her dinner, she meows at me to feed her faster.