When one of our cats disappeared two and a half weeks ago, I searched every where I could think. I read everything I could find about how to find a cat. I knocked on doors, checked garages, asked about sheds. The problem was that the cat who disappeared, our Isaac, is a huge cat with a very small voice. I also explored the ravine behind the houses across the street, blithely passing all the no trespassing signs because I know the cat couldn't read. In the ravine, it was a little like being completely cut off from the rest of the world. The trees were huge, the poison ivy rampant, the world dark.
I have recently learned from neighbors that there is a plethora of missing pets in the neighborhood and that the police told one of them there are coyotes in the neighborhood, well at least one. WHAT??? Yes, I live in a small city but we are not out west and not up north. Up north is where they have bears and coyotes and wolves and all that.
And it is the recent building into the out spaces that have intruded on the land that wild animals live and caused them displacement. My neighborhood? Noooooo. My neighborhood is built up to within an inch of its life -- except for that ravine.
And now, talking to neighbors and friends a little farther out, I have discovered that one of them has found cougar prints out past the back yard of her home. There have also been sightings of a cougar on a golf course. My head must have been firmly planted in the sand. How did all this wild life get here? Why didn't anyone warn me?
