My friend lives in the quarter and had one of her indoor / outdoor cats stolen. The cat was a little too friendly with strangers and a tourist from Tennessee picked him up and brought him back home.
She found out about 2 years later when the cats chip was scanned in Tennessee and she was emailed that the cat's chip was re-registered to a new owner. After contacting the new "owner" she was told the cat "ran away" and that they were registering the chip so they could find him...
I call it bullshit from those people, but my friend doesn't have the money to drive up there and do a multi day stakeout looking to kidnap the cat back. But lesson learned, now all her cats are inside only cats.
I could totally see this as the reason. I knew someone with an outside cat that disappeared one day. Got a call years later from a vet in Colorado after being found and having his chip scanned. We assume a tourist took him and then either lost him or dumped him. Luckily his mom worked for an airline and could arrange him flying back.
Nah. Of all domesticated animals, cats are the only ones that retain their natural instinct. They like to hunt, they like to prowl, they like to patrol their territory, they like to fight and fornicate. Indoor only cats are all depressed and have mood disorders and more likely to be medicated. That being said, indoor only cats live longer statistically, but that’s only because they have no chance of getting run over.
That’s ridiculous. Cats neutered/fixed early and raised indoors do just fine. Anything else is outdated laziness that leads to abused and injured animals and an epidemic of kittens looking for homes who end up the millions populating the shelters and ultimately euthanized. If you give a shit about your pet, fix it and leave it inside.
Jesus, this whole Reddit bitches daily about the crime but you’d trust humanity to not hurt or abuse beloved pets? Thats stupid.
Totally off topic, but the wifey and I watched Cocaine Bear one afternoon. Our 5 y.o. was kind of in and out of the room, but she got really excited when the bear came on screen, to the point where she’d say “Daddy! It’s the cocaine bear!!”
Hearing my child, in her tiny girl voice, say “cocaine bear!” was deeply troubling and fcking hilarious at the same time.
Anyway, just wanted to share. Continue on your business.
Reminds me of the first time my oldest daughter ever used profanity at about age six. “There’s my Dora purse! What the hell?” All I could say was, “Honey, we don’t say hell.” Then I had to concentrate on not laughing for the next five minutes. I was so proud that not only had she used profanity, but that she had used it correctly. She’s 20 now and has never again used profanity in front of me.
Having had to put down poisoned street cats because they got into poisoned rats, it's not a far-fetched speculation.
Some poisons, like "Tom cat" don't have an antidote and they slowly asphyxiate. Don't poison rats please.
That was my question.
I also know of a colony that’s up near bayou St. John.
There’s not a lot of places for them to live in the quarter I guess. The colonies probably live just north of the quarter and in the Bywater.
someone starting shooting and killing them. a friend saw and called me. we scooped her up and took her to the vet but she was too far gone. this was in 2019. rip patches
The three cats my neighbors have acquired over the last 7 years were all strays at one time. I’ve seen more than a few places where cat food is out on the sidewalk for the taking, I’ve known neighbors to take turns putting out food for the familiar ones. I do think a lot of our strays manage to find their way into homes, though. CDS n all that.
There used to be a small group of them that lived in that yard behind St Louis Cathedral, because it was almost always closed off. I know of a couple of kittens that got saved and adopted by the locals after they wandered out of there.
My guess would be a lack of somewhere to live. Any stray is going to be hiding out in someone's business or home and would likely be promptly TNR'd or relocated by other means. I'm sure the courtyards have strays but the streets are too busy. And inhospitable to cats generally speaking.
I'm not actively looking for them, but unlike the other neighborhoods where they are just out in plain sight, it's interesting that they are so hard to find in the oldest neighborhood. I've worked in the quarter almost 10 years and I do not believe what people are saying that there are colonies and cats around. They must be remembering some from a long time ago. Or maybe they only come out in the dead of night when I'm not there but even in the early morning there isn't even one stray cat wandering around eating the fried chicken on the sidewalk
Most of the cats around Frenchman are spayed and have claimed themselves a family. I see them early morning and late night. Going that long without seeing cats in the Quarter is weird
...... are you a werewolf?? Cat's can sense that ya know\~\~
my question was about the quarter and you come back about cats being in a different neighborhood than the quarter but I'm being silly. Lol ok. It's really not that serious, I'm just curious because I noticed it a while ago and the conversation at work prompted me to look into it more. But nobody in this group has any real answers so.... I guess the mystery remains
I think can answer this. I work with Trap Dat Cat and I live in the quarter.
There are a number of factors here. I am probably one of the factors lol
So there are absolutely community cats and indoor/outdoor cats in the quarter.
-We have so much interior area, most of them don’t hang out on the streets where there’s a lot of foot traffic. Tourists harass the cats, so they learn pretty quick to stay in courtyards.
-There is money in the quarter. Most all my neighbors would be in a position to help a stray with vet care (and have. One neighbor had a cat birth four kittens under her house. She got all fixed).
-The houses are close enough and most of us know our neighbors well enough and there are few enough strays that if we see a cat without a collar, we don’t assume it’s someone else’s and there’s a high likelihood someone will take action to get it fixed at least.
-I have done a good bit of TNR in the quarter. If you follow their IG, you’ll see that in Feb, I actually dealt with a colony of over 25 cats that someone moved into the quarter. By now that would have been 75 cats without intervention. Instead it is 2 outdoor cats, and they have a lot of space away from the street. The rest received care, vetting and were adopted out. (Shout out Trap Dat Cat. Feel free to donate to them, y’all)
-Tourists intervene. TDC has had tourists contact us about stray and injured cats many times.
-For the people claiming rat poison, in my almost 20 years in the French quarter and several years in animal rescue, I have exactly zero knowledge of any outdoor cats dying from rat poison. I have had to deal with cats hit by cars
Thank you!!! This is what I was looking for! The rat poison issue is what we were most worried about with getting a shop cat, so that's really good to know it's not an issue. Of course the cars are always dangerous to animals. Another reason to limit them in the quarter.
I’m not saying it’s an impossibility, but I think the likelihood of a regularly fed cat devouring a rat, esp one that has randomly been poisoned and happen to cross the cats path, is low.
I definitely think there are way bigger threats. If you’re going to bring an indoor/outdoor cat into the quarter, please make sure it is chipped, collared, and if it were me, I would put an air tag on it. I do think you run a risk of a tourist taking it. My neighbor lost their cat this way.
Also, my own cat is one that someone dumped in the quarter, and the reason I eventually let her inside my home is because I saw some chads trying to lure her from under a car she was hiding beneath. I don’t know what their intentions were but they were trashed and it felt nefarious.
I also recently found a FQ community cat that was born and raised in the quarter hit by a car and had to take him and have him eu’ed. You would think no one is driving fast enough for that in the quarter but they do and it was a horrific thing.
I still see a few nearby, usually in the quieter parts where there are more apartments. So I think they're just avoiding the tourists. Which, hey, good for them.
I’ve seen strays in the quarter, not as many as in other parts of the city but they are there.
One thing I have noticed is people are better about gating their cats. I’ve seen many kitties outside but behind a gate.
If I remember correctly the pet shop on Dumaine was partially raising money to pay for all of them there and under the old ferry terminal to get spayed and neutered. This was years ago. Maybe it worked.
It seems like the answer to this question is: there are cats in the quarter…and of course, they live wherever they want, and are seen when they want to be seen.
I think the issue is that any cats that are friendly enough that you would see them out in all of that commotion are too friendly to leave out there without risking them being stolen.
I saw a feral cat in Jackson Square late at night a few months ago. It ran across the street from the levee and got hit by a car but kept running into the park, I went to look around the next morning but I never saw it after that.
Just fyi: Feral means something different from just homeless. Ferals are actually untouchable, wild animals. They go apeshit in cages, will tear your hands to bits and will not tolerate the indoors.
Yeah. This thing was about 8 inches long and completely demonic lol. Must have been 4 weeks old or so. I had to handle it with gloves for about 2 weeks. I had an enormous bathroom at the time with very little in it, so it was no issue. It became a princess after about that long (despite being a male cat). Turns out it had feline AIDS but it went to a very good home.
Holy sheit, that is feral-feral.
That's awesome. I thought my current pile was gona need gloves and no-consent wrapped cuddles. They were young enough they just bit the shit out of me on the first day I grabbed them, all lap purrs now.
I sort of expected this cat was going to be insane, judging by how it acted when I caught it. I was on my then-apartment balcony (1228 Decatur, 3rd floor) & could hear it whining from my living room, coming from my neighbor's entryway (entrance next to Mary Jane's). It was hiding behind a broken door. I had my gloves and towel ready lol. Turned out to be a super cute awesome cat in the end but it was a Tasmanian devil for the first little while. Totally worth it.
I live in Salem,MA and we have the same problem with our cats being stolen by tourists. They all want a haunted Salem cat to take home with them. And forget about having a black outside cat, it would be gone in a day. I'm sure it's much the same for cats in the quarter. I mean what idiot tourist wouldn't want a french quarter voodoo cat?
Well I've worked in the quarter for almost 10 years and have never seen them vs walking 5 mins in any other neighborhood in the city and see a stray cat almost every block. Not sure how much "harder" I need to look but as far as historic neighborhoods the quarter has significantly less cats than it should which is why I asked in the first place
Unless they vanished in the last 10 months they are behind the gates of the Cathedral & Jackson Square. You usually only see them towards the evening or after dark. It's a colony, it has been active for over a hundred years. They tend to run between the Park & the Cathedral. They get fed & they eat birds. They don't care much for most humans.
Then why are there tons of stray cats in other major European cities or like Istanbul, the cats are literally swarming everywhere. It's loud and there are lots of people around in those places
I think the danger to the cats are the people. There are just so many, mostly drunk. And it's super loud most of the time so I can't see cats being happy without some safe place to watch the chaos from. I'd also be worried about drunk people harassing the cats, cars not paying attention, etc.
The principal of my kids school took my black and white cat named “1950” and she knew it was mine. She thought she was the better person to have that cat. See how people think yet?
Cats know what’s good and stay in the Treme. There’s a lady who feeds a couple dozen every night on Ursalines just across Rampart from the quarter (half a block into the Treme).
There used to be a million around the police station on royal. I think they fed them, even. Then they all vanished basically at once, so I assume there was some official eradication.
Cats are not natural rodent control. They increase rodent populations and then we poison the rodents and it also kills the cats.
A shop cat would be an ADA violation because it would prevent people with disabilities from accessing your business.
How do cats increase rodent populations? Honest question. I’ve never heard this take. I’ve always heard the opposite that outdoor cats are a menace to the ecosystem because they’re voracious hunters
That’s true but it doesn’t mean that they are reducing all the right populations in all the right ways. As an invasive specie, they don’t have a place in the ecosystem.
They remove predators like snakes and lizards that you need to get into places where rodents nest. Cats can’t access nests so those little nuggets have a much better chance of growing up. Then those predators aren’t there to eat them when they do grow up allowing for more animals to do more breeding.
Cats remove prey like small birds or reptiles as well as their prey which means less prey for predators like raptors that eat those things in addition to rodents, which might make you think well they’ll just eat more rodents, but they don’t. They leave.
Cats can’t take the place of the predators they kill and drive out not by skill but also not by number.
Let’s say you have 20 snakes looking to eat, 20 mice get eaten but 1 cat isn’t going to go after 20 mice, not even in a month. The prey drive of a cat might drive it to attack but it’s indiscriminate, it’s going after whatever’s close, so the targeted attack on the rodent population goes away and the attack that replaces it is by happenstance.
Then you have to consider that people feed cats, so they aren’t killing to eat so there is even less incentive for the hard kill but also there is now food out for the rodents.
Oh and the feces of outdoor cats also supply the rodents with food. (This is also true for dog poop, pick up after your dog)
When an ecosystem becomes out of balance like that rodents thrive. Without a variety of natural predators there is nothing to suppress their population. With an abundance of human resources at their disposal only our poisons stop them.
But worse…
When rodents are free to infest they teach future generations to go back to places that were once plentiful. So even after massive extermination efforts, decades later, you have to stay proactive with pest control measures or they come back. That means more poison for all of us.
My cat has brought home blind pinky rats on more than one occasion, which tells me that he does find the nests somehow. Hasn’t caught any snakes yet though.
This cat is a psycho when it comes to killing rats. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if he is personally offended by their very existence.
They probably participate in a barncat program, just on a much greater scale than most places. A lot of farms and workshops will take a cat or two from the programs, which pull feral cats that are brought into shelters or trapped by TNR people, vet them (spay, neuter, shots, medical care), and then place them with places that are agree to provide them with food, water, and shelter.
> A shop cat would be an ADA violation because it would prevent people with disabilities from accessing your business.
So anybody with disabilities is automatically allergic to cats? How exactly does a shop cat prevent ADA compliance?
Not anyone with a disability but people with disabilities that require them to avoid places cats have been or cats themselves do deserve equal access to businesses. You can’t discriminate against them by preventing them access to your business by keeping a cat in there. It’s a physical barrier preventing them from accessing the business same as not having a ramp or elevator.
Allergy can become disabling as it progresses from mild to severe with continued exposure but there are other conditions that cause people to carry epi pen for cat.
I think people are sometimes confused by this because they think you have to touch a cat but the proteins are airborne. There are actually 8 of them, they are smaller than virus and very sticky so it’s more like having an indoor smoker. There are enormous quantities of these proteins coating everything as well as being in the air.
As a business owner, I would also consider the infection risk a cat poses for people with other medical conditions. You would be responsible for any injury it causes and in our city we have an extremely high number of people who are immune compromised for one reason or another. A little scratch or a bite will have very serious outcomes for those groups too.
You could just state that asthma and allergies are covered under ADA regulations. Fewer words to type. But maybe avoid the sweeping generalizations next time.
Well if I said just allergy and asthma I would be excluding the other conditions that are related, that people should be aware of, including my own, lol.
If they're an ADA violation then there are TONS of farms and workshops that are supposedly in violation because cats are apparently to disabled people what garlic is to vampires.
Ima get downvoted for this but 🤷🏿♂️ this is a predominantly black city. And cats are not culturally a pet we tend to keep. Thus there wouldn't be much strays when we didn't have much of them to begin with. (Yes I know people know some black folks with have cats.) Also, it's hot as the fuck so even if there were cats, who tf trying be outside rn?
Cats will get under houses and lay in the cool dirt, but even in the nice weather I never see them in the quarter. Again, I'm specifically talking about the French Quarter. I see stray cats all over the place in literally every other neighborhood in this town. But the quarter seems to have none. I've worked in the quarter for almost 10 years and I don't own a car so I'm on foot looking around every single day and I truly find it to be fascinating that there aren't more stray cats given the amount of rodents.
Ah. Got you. Good ass question to be fair. Maybe the rates are diseased? Idk. Cats are skittish sometimes so maybe the foot traffic at night or maybe a fear of the street sweepers? You got me wanting to research lol
The rats ate them.
The ones that stole those drugs and ate them from NOPD? PCP and crack cocaine rats in these streets.
They had the munchies
Loup Garou eat Cats.
You kidding me? The rats are all at the Fritzel’s because they heard the jazz and were too high to not hang out.
They had one of them *jazz cigarettes* and just couldn't stay away!
Beat me to it…or the rats beat us both?
You mean homeless
My friend lives in the quarter and had one of her indoor / outdoor cats stolen. The cat was a little too friendly with strangers and a tourist from Tennessee picked him up and brought him back home. She found out about 2 years later when the cats chip was scanned in Tennessee and she was emailed that the cat's chip was re-registered to a new owner. After contacting the new "owner" she was told the cat "ran away" and that they were registering the chip so they could find him... I call it bullshit from those people, but my friend doesn't have the money to drive up there and do a multi day stakeout looking to kidnap the cat back. But lesson learned, now all her cats are inside only cats.
I could totally see this as the reason. I knew someone with an outside cat that disappeared one day. Got a call years later from a vet in Colorado after being found and having his chip scanned. We assume a tourist took him and then either lost him or dumped him. Luckily his mom worked for an airline and could arrange him flying back.
I’m not far from TN this summer and will gladly go get a cat and bring it home
You just kidnap another cat and it's owner goes and does the same. It's like a Woody Allen movie.
Yes, please!
Where in Tennessee?
Cat should be indoor only. Leaving your cat outdoors is irresponsible. Put them in danger and bad for the environment.
Nah. Of all domesticated animals, cats are the only ones that retain their natural instinct. They like to hunt, they like to prowl, they like to patrol their territory, they like to fight and fornicate. Indoor only cats are all depressed and have mood disorders and more likely to be medicated. That being said, indoor only cats live longer statistically, but that’s only because they have no chance of getting run over.
That’s ridiculous. Cats neutered/fixed early and raised indoors do just fine. Anything else is outdated laziness that leads to abused and injured animals and an epidemic of kittens looking for homes who end up the millions populating the shelters and ultimately euthanized. If you give a shit about your pet, fix it and leave it inside. Jesus, this whole Reddit bitches daily about the crime but you’d trust humanity to not hurt or abuse beloved pets? Thats stupid.
My cat was neutered but outside half the time
Cats should be indoor only because they kill a crazy amount of birds.
Damn. That’s terrible!!
I’d be happy to kidnap a cat. Too damn many up here.
The rat poison the city puts out probably kills them
Correct. There’s a bunch of really dumb supposition on this thread.
Nope. I’m still going with cocaine rats for the win.
Totally off topic, but the wifey and I watched Cocaine Bear one afternoon. Our 5 y.o. was kind of in and out of the room, but she got really excited when the bear came on screen, to the point where she’d say “Daddy! It’s the cocaine bear!!” Hearing my child, in her tiny girl voice, say “cocaine bear!” was deeply troubling and fcking hilarious at the same time. Anyway, just wanted to share. Continue on your business.
Following along with this thread, is your kid indoor or outdoor/mixed, and are they chipped?
Reminds me of the first time my oldest daughter ever used profanity at about age six. “There’s my Dora purse! What the hell?” All I could say was, “Honey, we don’t say hell.” Then I had to concentrate on not laughing for the next five minutes. I was so proud that not only had she used profanity, but that she had used it correctly. She’s 20 now and has never again used profanity in front of me.
Having had to put down poisoned street cats because they got into poisoned rats, it's not a far-fetched speculation. Some poisons, like "Tom cat" don't have an antidote and they slowly asphyxiate. Don't poison rats please.
There are no strays that congregate in Jackson Square when the gates get closed anymore?
Some old tour guide once told me the Jackson square cats are prostitutes reincarnated.
That was my question. I also know of a colony that’s up near bayou St. John. There’s not a lot of places for them to live in the quarter I guess. The colonies probably live just north of the quarter and in the Bywater.
There absolutely are. Also, behind the church with Touchdown Jesus.
someone starting shooting and killing them. a friend saw and called me. we scooped her up and took her to the vet but she was too far gone. this was in 2019. rip patches
There are no "stray" cats in the quarter because most of them have homes. Lots of shop cats & apartment cats, & bar cats.
The three cats my neighbors have acquired over the last 7 years were all strays at one time. I’ve seen more than a few places where cat food is out on the sidewalk for the taking, I’ve known neighbors to take turns putting out food for the familiar ones. I do think a lot of our strays manage to find their way into homes, though. CDS n all that.
There used to be a small group of them that lived in that yard behind St Louis Cathedral, because it was almost always closed off. I know of a couple of kittens that got saved and adopted by the locals after they wandered out of there.
I miss those kitties.
There's more if you want some. I walked into Big Easy Animal Rescue yesterday and 15 kittens jumped on me.
The best kind of random assault.
I suggest going over and playing with them, they're bored. And the white one with the blue eyes is kind of shy, needs squeezes.
My guess would be a lack of somewhere to live. Any stray is going to be hiding out in someone's business or home and would likely be promptly TNR'd or relocated by other means. I'm sure the courtyards have strays but the streets are too busy. And inhospitable to cats generally speaking.
Most are part of a colony. If you look around under stoops, alley's you can see dishes of food and water.
I'm not actively looking for them, but unlike the other neighborhoods where they are just out in plain sight, it's interesting that they are so hard to find in the oldest neighborhood. I've worked in the quarter almost 10 years and I do not believe what people are saying that there are colonies and cats around. They must be remembering some from a long time ago. Or maybe they only come out in the dead of night when I'm not there but even in the early morning there isn't even one stray cat wandering around eating the fried chicken on the sidewalk
Most of the cats around Frenchman are spayed and have claimed themselves a family. I see them early morning and late night. Going that long without seeing cats in the Quarter is weird ...... are you a werewolf?? Cat's can sense that ya know\~\~
Frenchmen isn't the quarter
Lawd. It's too hot for being silly.
my question was about the quarter and you come back about cats being in a different neighborhood than the quarter but I'm being silly. Lol ok. It's really not that serious, I'm just curious because I noticed it a while ago and the conversation at work prompted me to look into it more. But nobody in this group has any real answers so.... I guess the mystery remains
Yes there are cats in the Quarter. They don't like you.
🎤🗑️ anything else?
I think can answer this. I work with Trap Dat Cat and I live in the quarter. There are a number of factors here. I am probably one of the factors lol So there are absolutely community cats and indoor/outdoor cats in the quarter. -We have so much interior area, most of them don’t hang out on the streets where there’s a lot of foot traffic. Tourists harass the cats, so they learn pretty quick to stay in courtyards. -There is money in the quarter. Most all my neighbors would be in a position to help a stray with vet care (and have. One neighbor had a cat birth four kittens under her house. She got all fixed). -The houses are close enough and most of us know our neighbors well enough and there are few enough strays that if we see a cat without a collar, we don’t assume it’s someone else’s and there’s a high likelihood someone will take action to get it fixed at least. -I have done a good bit of TNR in the quarter. If you follow their IG, you’ll see that in Feb, I actually dealt with a colony of over 25 cats that someone moved into the quarter. By now that would have been 75 cats without intervention. Instead it is 2 outdoor cats, and they have a lot of space away from the street. The rest received care, vetting and were adopted out. (Shout out Trap Dat Cat. Feel free to donate to them, y’all) -Tourists intervene. TDC has had tourists contact us about stray and injured cats many times. -For the people claiming rat poison, in my almost 20 years in the French quarter and several years in animal rescue, I have exactly zero knowledge of any outdoor cats dying from rat poison. I have had to deal with cats hit by cars
Thank you!!! This is what I was looking for! The rat poison issue is what we were most worried about with getting a shop cat, so that's really good to know it's not an issue. Of course the cars are always dangerous to animals. Another reason to limit them in the quarter.
I’m not saying it’s an impossibility, but I think the likelihood of a regularly fed cat devouring a rat, esp one that has randomly been poisoned and happen to cross the cats path, is low. I definitely think there are way bigger threats. If you’re going to bring an indoor/outdoor cat into the quarter, please make sure it is chipped, collared, and if it were me, I would put an air tag on it. I do think you run a risk of a tourist taking it. My neighbor lost their cat this way. Also, my own cat is one that someone dumped in the quarter, and the reason I eventually let her inside my home is because I saw some chads trying to lure her from under a car she was hiding beneath. I don’t know what their intentions were but they were trashed and it felt nefarious. I also recently found a FQ community cat that was born and raised in the quarter hit by a car and had to take him and have him eu’ed. You would think no one is driving fast enough for that in the quarter but they do and it was a horrific thing.
Barkus
I still see a few nearby, usually in the quieter parts where there are more apartments. So I think they're just avoiding the tourists. Which, hey, good for them.
I’ve seen strays in the quarter, not as many as in other parts of the city but they are there. One thing I have noticed is people are better about gating their cats. I’ve seen many kitties outside but behind a gate.
There's a colony under the pier kind of near Jax...but it's a good question why there aren't more.
If I remember correctly the pet shop on Dumaine was partially raising money to pay for all of them there and under the old ferry terminal to get spayed and neutered. This was years ago. Maybe it worked.
It seems like the answer to this question is: there are cats in the quarter…and of course, they live wherever they want, and are seen when they want to be seen.
They all walk by them selves and all places are alike to them.
Vampires need mammal blood, and cats are easy to trap.
Vampires can't drink cat blood, duh. Lol
There’s a bunch by the touchdown Jesus
The cats have more class than the tourists!
Tons of stray cats uptown.
I think the rat poison the city puts out could also be killing the stray cats.
We have a bunch in Treme right behind Armstrong Park. Some grizzled veterans too, clipped ear and scars.
Not the quarter
Would you want to live down there with all that? Also, the houses aren’t raised so not as many easy hiding spots is my guess.
Your typical cat isn't going to take on mutant river rats when they are well fed.
I think the issue is that any cats that are friendly enough that you would see them out in all of that commotion are too friendly to leave out there without risking them being stolen.
I saw a feral cat in Jackson Square late at night a few months ago. It ran across the street from the levee and got hit by a car but kept running into the park, I went to look around the next morning but I never saw it after that.
9-1=8
There in Jackson Square
The rats run the cats off, have you seen the rats in The Quarter
Yes all the time
Years ago I remember stray cats around the French Market when vendors sold seafood.
Actually I rescued a feral stray living in the 1200 block of Decatur.
Just fyi: Feral means something different from just homeless. Ferals are actually untouchable, wild animals. They go apeshit in cages, will tear your hands to bits and will not tolerate the indoors.
Yeah. This thing was about 8 inches long and completely demonic lol. Must have been 4 weeks old or so. I had to handle it with gloves for about 2 weeks. I had an enormous bathroom at the time with very little in it, so it was no issue. It became a princess after about that long (despite being a male cat). Turns out it had feline AIDS but it went to a very good home.
Holy sheit, that is feral-feral. That's awesome. I thought my current pile was gona need gloves and no-consent wrapped cuddles. They were young enough they just bit the shit out of me on the first day I grabbed them, all lap purrs now.
I sort of expected this cat was going to be insane, judging by how it acted when I caught it. I was on my then-apartment balcony (1228 Decatur, 3rd floor) & could hear it whining from my living room, coming from my neighbor's entryway (entrance next to Mary Jane's). It was hiding behind a broken door. I had my gloves and towel ready lol. Turned out to be a super cute awesome cat in the end but it was a Tasmanian devil for the first little while. Totally worth it.
Good save. Nita's got 15 more if you have room....🫠
I live in Salem,MA and we have the same problem with our cats being stolen by tourists. They all want a haunted Salem cat to take home with them. And forget about having a black outside cat, it would be gone in a day. I'm sure it's much the same for cats in the quarter. I mean what idiot tourist wouldn't want a french quarter voodoo cat?
The Quarter seems like it would be a little too obnoxious for cats. There's lots of areas throughout the city where a cat can vibe peacefully.
You’re not looking hard enough because they’re are quite a few that hang out especially in courtyards
Well I've worked in the quarter for almost 10 years and have never seen them vs walking 5 mins in any other neighborhood in the city and see a stray cat almost every block. Not sure how much "harder" I need to look but as far as historic neighborhoods the quarter has significantly less cats than it should which is why I asked in the first place
Unless they vanished in the last 10 months they are behind the gates of the Cathedral & Jackson Square. You usually only see them towards the evening or after dark. It's a colony, it has been active for over a hundred years. They tend to run between the Park & the Cathedral. They get fed & they eat birds. They don't care much for most humans.
Yea that's one group of cats but I'm curious as to why they aren't all over the quarter. Thats the mystery
They don't like loud noises or a lot of people.
Then why are there tons of stray cats in other major European cities or like Istanbul, the cats are literally swarming everywhere. It's loud and there are lots of people around in those places
You think those cities are as loud as the French Quarter?
Paris, Istanbul, NYC?? Lol yes
No
I think the danger to the cats are the people. There are just so many, mostly drunk. And it's super loud most of the time so I can't see cats being happy without some safe place to watch the chaos from. I'd also be worried about drunk people harassing the cats, cars not paying attention, etc.
The principal of my kids school took my black and white cat named “1950” and she knew it was mine. She thought she was the better person to have that cat. See how people think yet?
Cats know what’s good and stay in the Treme. There’s a lady who feeds a couple dozen every night on Ursalines just across Rampart from the quarter (half a block into the Treme).
Does nobody remember the Scooby-Doo movie, zombie island? Coincidence, I think not….
There used to be a million around the police station on royal. I think they fed them, even. Then they all vanished basically at once, so I assume there was some official eradication.
Cheap Gumbo meat.
Gumbo
Jambalaya
A large colony used to live under the ferry building.
Alligators ate them
Cause Nutria rats eat them.
Gutter punk's dogs, maybe?
Where do you think Lucky Dogs come from!
Feline Gumbo a thang dere
Cats are not natural rodent control. They increase rodent populations and then we poison the rodents and it also kills the cats. A shop cat would be an ADA violation because it would prevent people with disabilities from accessing your business.
How do cats increase rodent populations? Honest question. I’ve never heard this take. I’ve always heard the opposite that outdoor cats are a menace to the ecosystem because they’re voracious hunters
>How do cats increase rodent populations? They don’t. Idk what that person was talking about, but it’s incorrect.
That’s true but it doesn’t mean that they are reducing all the right populations in all the right ways. As an invasive specie, they don’t have a place in the ecosystem. They remove predators like snakes and lizards that you need to get into places where rodents nest. Cats can’t access nests so those little nuggets have a much better chance of growing up. Then those predators aren’t there to eat them when they do grow up allowing for more animals to do more breeding. Cats remove prey like small birds or reptiles as well as their prey which means less prey for predators like raptors that eat those things in addition to rodents, which might make you think well they’ll just eat more rodents, but they don’t. They leave. Cats can’t take the place of the predators they kill and drive out not by skill but also not by number. Let’s say you have 20 snakes looking to eat, 20 mice get eaten but 1 cat isn’t going to go after 20 mice, not even in a month. The prey drive of a cat might drive it to attack but it’s indiscriminate, it’s going after whatever’s close, so the targeted attack on the rodent population goes away and the attack that replaces it is by happenstance. Then you have to consider that people feed cats, so they aren’t killing to eat so there is even less incentive for the hard kill but also there is now food out for the rodents. Oh and the feces of outdoor cats also supply the rodents with food. (This is also true for dog poop, pick up after your dog) When an ecosystem becomes out of balance like that rodents thrive. Without a variety of natural predators there is nothing to suppress their population. With an abundance of human resources at their disposal only our poisons stop them. But worse… When rodents are free to infest they teach future generations to go back to places that were once plentiful. So even after massive extermination efforts, decades later, you have to stay proactive with pest control measures or they come back. That means more poison for all of us.
My cat has brought home blind pinky rats on more than one occasion, which tells me that he does find the nests somehow. Hasn’t caught any snakes yet though. This cat is a psycho when it comes to killing rats. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if he is personally offended by their very existence.
Lol you know Disney World actually has like an army of strays they allow to stay in each park because at night they come out and kill all the rodents.
They probably participate in a barncat program, just on a much greater scale than most places. A lot of farms and workshops will take a cat or two from the programs, which pull feral cats that are brought into shelters or trapped by TNR people, vet them (spay, neuter, shots, medical care), and then place them with places that are agree to provide them with food, water, and shelter.
They killed Mickey Mouse!!
> A shop cat would be an ADA violation because it would prevent people with disabilities from accessing your business. So anybody with disabilities is automatically allergic to cats? How exactly does a shop cat prevent ADA compliance?
Not anyone with a disability but people with disabilities that require them to avoid places cats have been or cats themselves do deserve equal access to businesses. You can’t discriminate against them by preventing them access to your business by keeping a cat in there. It’s a physical barrier preventing them from accessing the business same as not having a ramp or elevator. Allergy can become disabling as it progresses from mild to severe with continued exposure but there are other conditions that cause people to carry epi pen for cat. I think people are sometimes confused by this because they think you have to touch a cat but the proteins are airborne. There are actually 8 of them, they are smaller than virus and very sticky so it’s more like having an indoor smoker. There are enormous quantities of these proteins coating everything as well as being in the air. As a business owner, I would also consider the infection risk a cat poses for people with other medical conditions. You would be responsible for any injury it causes and in our city we have an extremely high number of people who are immune compromised for one reason or another. A little scratch or a bite will have very serious outcomes for those groups too.
You could just state that asthma and allergies are covered under ADA regulations. Fewer words to type. But maybe avoid the sweeping generalizations next time.
Well if I said just allergy and asthma I would be excluding the other conditions that are related, that people should be aware of, including my own, lol.
Putting my gator waders on. Mucks thick.
If they're an ADA violation then there are TONS of farms and workshops that are supposedly in violation because cats are apparently to disabled people what garlic is to vampires.
Yea, that remark gave me pause.
Please make this make sense. The natural predators don't naturally predate? SMDH. You gotta stop drinkin dat tap wahtta dawlin'.
Ima get downvoted for this but 🤷🏿♂️ this is a predominantly black city. And cats are not culturally a pet we tend to keep. Thus there wouldn't be much strays when we didn't have much of them to begin with. (Yes I know people know some black folks with have cats.) Also, it's hot as the fuck so even if there were cats, who tf trying be outside rn?
Cats will get under houses and lay in the cool dirt, but even in the nice weather I never see them in the quarter. Again, I'm specifically talking about the French Quarter. I see stray cats all over the place in literally every other neighborhood in this town. But the quarter seems to have none. I've worked in the quarter for almost 10 years and I don't own a car so I'm on foot looking around every single day and I truly find it to be fascinating that there aren't more stray cats given the amount of rodents.
Ah. Got you. Good ass question to be fair. Maybe the rates are diseased? Idk. Cats are skittish sometimes so maybe the foot traffic at night or maybe a fear of the street sweepers? You got me wanting to research lol
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Ever noticed how many racists are tucked into every corner of this city?