Page 127 - Demo

125AS JOHN WAS SETTING UP HIS CAMERA, I noticed a cat peering through the tall weeds growing around a telephone pole. It looked around, then darted across the gravel. He was a rough-looking beast who, no doubt, had survived against the odds. His gray fur was an uneven mass of cowlicks entangled with burrs, and he had but half a tail. Yet, he managed to appear regal, holding his head, and what was left of his stump-of-a-tail, high. After briefly sitting and licking himself, something startled him, and he slithered into a hole under the loading dock, and was gone.Mangy, half-tailed, proud, sleek, black, yellow, gray, white, tabby, calico%u2014cats, of some type or another, seem to gravitate to local feed mills and grain elevators. Some are lucky felines, and are provided bowls of dry cat food and fresh water. Others make do completely on their own.While a few will nuzzle your leg, many granary cats are nameless, semi-feral creatures. If you get too close, they disappear Houdini-like into irregular gaps in the siding, poorly sealed doors, or cracks in crumbling foundations. Theirs is a world just a bit apart from the humans who come to work in the morning and leave by sundown%u2014a world of mutual toleration. For, after the people depart, they remain, waiting for twilight%u2014a time when they come into their own and patrol for intruders. As security specialists they are always on the alert for thieves%u2014rodents, that is.Cats, both domestic and wild, are well-equipped by Nature to be superb low-light predators. In the shadows we find dusky and disorienting, their eyes are capable of perceiving the slightest movement. With depth perception equal to our own, they can easily judge precisely where a momentary twitch takes place. Us,ing rotating ears that are acutely sensitive to a range of frequencies%u2014far beyond what we can hear%u2014they hone in on scurrying patter or high-pitched rodent chatter, while we hear only silence. Combining these traits with amazing agility, excellent balance, touch-sensitive whiskers, razor-sharp retractable claws, a formidable set of teeth, and a carnivore%u2019s relentless hunting instinct, and you have a prefect mouser. And a good mouser is always welcome around grain.This fourfold relationship between man, grain, rodent, and cat has existed for a long time. Ancient Egyptians domesticated desert cats in order to protect their stored grain%u2014a food source that was vital for their survival. Perhaps to honor their role as protectors of the community%u2019s harvest, they deified their domesticated felines. Cat cults developed and thousands of sacrificed and mummified cats were offered to the cat goddess, Bast%u2014the protector not of grain, but women and children.Today, cats may not be considered sacred, but they%u2019re still appreciated in their role as protectors. Their job%u2014minimizing rodent damage to stored crops%u2014is as valuable today as it was 3,000 years ago. They are often seen, yet they are self-contained and elusive, and always at home around older feed mills and grain elevators. And the half-tailed gray cat? I watched and waited for him to emerge from his gloomy retreat, but he remained hidden%u2014close but inaccessible%u2014catlike.Working cats