Iguanas, feral cats & St. Thomas

Just back from a visit to "Technicolorland," aka St. Thomas, USVI, and sorry to report that for feral cats on that beautiful island, all is not well. Or at least, all is not united.

And while the status of iguanas on St. Thomas is still looking good -- we saw and enjoyed them in all their usual haunts -- it's very bad news for iguanas on Puerto Rico. There, officials have decided to kill off island iguanas and sell their meat.

Details on this cruel "solution" to what people there see as an iguana problem can be found at my 2nd blog -- www.nj.com/pets.

Now back to St. Thomas cats . . . Last February after returning from vacation, I wrote a number of posts here about the woman who had founded the "cat cafe" program, Dellia Holodenschi. At the time, she was working with the Humane Society of St. Thomas.

Since then, a lot has happened, including a rupture between the two, with Dellia starting her own foundation to continue with the cat cafes (and their Trap-Neuter-Return component.) The HS operations manager was unavailable to meet with me -- a great disappointment because of course I’m there only once a year.

That, plus the fact that their new facility should be opening any time now, and I didn’t get to see either the current site or it. So as far as cats are concerned, then, this was nearly a feline-free vacation, except for the few feral cats at MorningStar, where we stayed. They were usually in the vicinity of the cat café near the restaurant.
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Animal ‘news’ in St. Thomas

So what’s new for animals in St. Thomas (a.k.a. “Technicolorland”) this year? For iguanas, our all-time island favorite, a couple new signs were small but helpful things we spotted, one at “our” resort.

The first sign may deter tourists from treating the iguanas stupidly; in the past, we saw an iguana with a chunk of watermelon (temporarily) stuck in his/her craw. Needless to say, that fruit was a “gift” from a tourist. When the iguana was later tracked down by a staff member, the watermelon had either been swallowed or spit out.

And there was much good news about/for feral cats on the island. It may well have happened before this year – details will follow in future posts – but a program called “Cat Cafes” that operates out of the Humane Society of St. Thomas is a really good thing for the multitudes of ferals there.

At various places around the island there are decorative little buildings where food and water are provided for ferals. And reportedly, TNR is also practiced, with cats who have been neutered sporting one scalloped ear tip, as usual. (Lawrence and Ewing Townships, NJ, are you reading this?)

Probably best of all, many of those I talked with knew about the Humane Society (UNconnected with the Humane Society of the US) and the Cat Cafes. When people know about such things and speak matter of factly about them, that’s a great sign of acceptance.

Hooray for St. Thomas – savvier and more humane on the feral cat issue than some places in New Jersey!
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