Cats

I know I'm not particularly good at keeping this blog up to date, but I'm going to try a bit harder over the next few weeks (as I can't go out and enjoy myself because I'm on crutches!)

I don't know the latest news from Fiji, beyond increasing concerns of human rights violations by the military. I will endeavour to find out what I can and state that here, but I am a little cautious about endangering friends over there.

In the meantime, on a brighter note, I thought I'd recount some more memories of Yadua:

At our camp in Nawaisevu Bay we had a couple of cats, Robbie and Chivers, whose intended purpose was to keep away rats. In actual fact that didn't seem particularly effective at this, since a lot of our food, particularly anything chocolate, seemed to get regularly ravished

The two, peculiarly named after makes of jam (Robertsons and Chivers), were definite characters though. They were sisters, and so bore quite a close resemblance, though had very different characters. Robbie was probably the braver of the two, and certainly the most human-friendly, whilst Chivers was much more reserved.

Whenever tuna cans were opened both quickly appeared on the scene, but other than that their hunting prowess didn't exactly impress. One morning I managed to spear a small fish (a banded grunter) from the waters edge, and threw it to Chivers, waiting patiently by the shore. She looked down at it, then up at me and meowed expectantly. I waited for her to eat it, but instead she cautiously extended a paw, then jumped back as the still living fish wriggled and eventually flopped its way back into the surf and swam away

The one thing I found most interesting about the two cats was how much they loved coconut. I never even thought cats would eat coconut, but as soon as we opened one they would appear and gobble up any small piece they were offered. Below is a picture I took just before leaving of the two of them and some coconut (apologies for the bad colours, I dropped my camera in the sea just afterwards!)



Unfortunately, there were feral cats on the island too, and at the time we were there no one had seen fit to spay our cats (perhaps understandably because the closest vet was maybe a 24 hour journey away). This meant that they both became pregnant during our time there, and that created quite a lot of disagreement in camp. Some people looked forward to having kittens around, whilst others (including me) were worried about the impact on the local wildlife of more feral cats

Cats are generally pretty good at eating anything, and not being indigenous on these islands they are a serious threat to local wildlife. Though there were objections it was decided we would have to kill the kittens

Except Greg, none of us had done anything like that before, though Rosie reluctantly volunteered herself. However, in the end Rosie was visiting another island when Robbie gave birth, and after a couple of days Mike and I took action ourselves. It was not particularly pleasant, and caused a temporary rift in our group

In the end Chivers' kittens were left alive, though I don't know what happened to them after we left