Book Review: The Cats of Roxville Station

Title: The Cats of Roxville Station

Author: Jean Craighead George

Author’s web site: http://www.jeancraigheadgeorge.com/

Publisher: Dutton 

Date: 2009

ISBN: 978-0525421405

Number of pages: 192

Illustrations: drawings by Tom Pohrt

Jean Craighead George was probably our most prolific living nature writer. Best known for My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves, she wrote dozens of other books that dramatized facts about animals, conservation, wildlife, and the environment. 

The Cats of Roxville Station presents facts about feral cats through the story of a cat called Rachet and the human she eventually adopts, Mike. Two years of feral life have left Rachet friendly but wary toward humans, which makes her a perfect pet for Mike, whose family don't want an indoor pet. 

Apart from the gradual bonding between cat and child, the rest of the story simply narrates known facts about how typical feral cats live. There's a sort of social life, although the cat characters in this book are not social cats--there's no hint of team hunting or shared parenting. There are some similarities betwene the cat society in The Cats of Roxville Station and the wolf society in Julie of the Wolves, but only insofar as general patterns of animal social behavior hold true for both species (and in subtler ways for humans).

Young readers learn that feral cats fight, but mostly their fights consist of yowling at each other, bluffing. Feral cats seldom do each other much damage; they can make each other more vulnerable to predators and infection while inflicting only skin wounds. Feral cats are not looking for homes to share with humans, but most will gradually become friendly if approached in a non-demanding way. And, of course, feral cats live mostly on mice, crickets, crayfish, and similar small animals they can easily catch, rather than on birds.

Occasionally one of the Cats of Roxville Station does kill a bird, as happens in real life. The rest of that story isn't told in the book. When does a landbound predator kill an animal that can fly? Usually, when the winged animal is sick enough that killing it is an act of mercy. 

There are some noteworthy exceptions. Tiny baby birds can't fly for the first two or three weeks of life, and cats can easily destroy the family that may be a neighborhood's whole local grouse population, so it's good to try to keep cats away from those species when you know they're nesting. On remote South Sea islands, including the big islands known as Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii, some bird species evolved without developing an instinct to avoid landbound predators; those species are now seriously endangered by rats even without cats being tempted to chase them too. No native North American bird species is endangered primarily by cats, but a few are gravely endangered enough to need protection even from cats and dogs in a few places. (And pity those places; like otherwise gorgeous Prince Georges County, Maryland, they're in for serious rat problems, and I'm not altogether sure that Bachman's Wretched Warbler ever even existed, as a separate species.) Then there are the birds with whom some human has bonded--it can happen instantly, as when the first green heron you've ever met draws its little self up and "croaks" at you--and neighbors who want other neighbors to be careful not to drive over their cats need to be equally careful that the cats don't hurt the "pet" wrens somebody wants to allow to nest on the front porch.  

But generally, when cats are able to kill birds, there's no danger of species extinction but immediate danger that the cats will be sick. If the bird was being eaten alive by gape worms or was killed by exposure during a sudden deep freeze, the cat will probably be all right, though cats can still pick up minor virus infections from birds. If the sick bird was dying slowly of aspergillosis, a fungus infection that's become much more common among birds exposed to glyphosate, the cat will probably vomit a few times and feel better after a few hours of self-punishment, but some cats are vulnerable to this disease too and may die. If the bird ate something poisoned, you'd have to know what the poison was to have any idea whether the cat will recover or die. 

Humans need prowling cats for our own protection from diseases that are deadly to us, probably more than we need any specific species of songbird, so there's a temptation to say that we should shout down any whines about cats' danger to birds and focus on the danger birds present to cats. However, in prairie country, where there were few trees and most of the resident bird species had to evolve ground-nesting or burrow-nesting habits, keeping a cat indoors might make sense--some bird or other might be nesting nearby throughout the warm season, and the cat probably prefers to stay indoors in winter. In the Eastern States, where nearly all birds nest high in trees, there's almost no excuse for any interference with a cat's performance of its duty. At most we might want to humor the neighbor who wants to watch the wrens raise their family, during the month or so it takes small birds to raise families.

I was glad when George wrote this book. While my brother unconditionally loved all the books she was writing while we were growing up, I was prejudiced against them because of her claim in an early 1970s book that "cats killed Cock Robin." In the early 1970s, when bird populations were decimated by abuse of DDT, anything that killed any bird--even euthanized an obviously sick bird--was a threat to the species. This is no longer true, so I'm glad George came forward to admit that cats are no longer a threat to bird populations.

One detail she may have overstated was the claim that, when cats "torture" injured mice, the mice are anesthetized by their own adrenalin and endorphin, and feel fear but not pain. It's true that mice can show the same "fight or flight" reaction that allows humans to feel only a small aprt of the pain from an injury during an adrenalin "high." If you have ever finished a game, hike, or job after an injury, you know that the "high" blocks only some awareness of pain. I have seen bleeding, dying rodents stand up and squeak defiantly at cats rather than trying to flee, but there's no guarantee; not all rodents always want to keep fighting cats, and those who do may have additional motives such as keeping cats away from their nests.

The good news for those concerned about rodents and bunnies is that cats "torture" prey animals when (1) they have an audience or (2) they're not able to kill their prey and eat it quickly, so cats are still to blame for relatively little suffering.

The good news for all wildlife lovers is that outdoor cats have their place in a human-friendly natural environment. Sensible environmentalists knew this for years before 2009, but it was nice to see a book about it...and George did wildlife books so well, with light, plausible human characters and well researched, convincing animals. I don't know for a fact, but could believe, that she'd lived with every animal species she wrote about.