Our love affair with cats

Cats provide comfort, companionship and connection to the wild. Nearly half of all New Zealand households include a feline member. But now the country is at a crossroads—should we introduce stronger rules governing how we look after our most beloved companion animal?

Few countries have more cats per person than New Zealand. About 44 per cent of our households have adopted at least one feline companion. Some have become celebrities. The nation mourned en masse when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s polydactyl pet, Paddles, was run over in 2017. Mittens, a wandering Turkish angora in central Wellington, has garnered widespread acclaim for his habit of trespassing in shops, homes and managed isolation facilities across the capital.

But this love is one without limits. Keep reading...

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The cat is out of the bag

“I have cats all the time, and I don’t even know it,” says photographer Rob Suisted, looking at what the camera at one of his farm gates has captured. Felines roaming by day and by night. They don’t belong to him, or to his neighbours.

Their existence was a revelation. “If it wasn’t for the trail cam I would have no idea of all these cats roaming over my land,” he says.

At first, cats seemed like an easy story assignment. Cats are everywhere. Almost half of all households in the country have a cat. But that doesn’t make them easy to photograph. Keep reading...

We can love our cats and give them rules

“My family has always had cats, but never on purpose. Our first cat was left behind by our neighbours when they moved. We made the mistake of naming him, and after that, he was one of us. When he died, there was a respectful pause of a few months, as if the local feline community knew how much we’d loved him.

“Then another cat started hanging around. She moved in, and after a while, we accepted the fact. When she started wobbling as she walked, and then had a stroke, it took even less time for another cat to turn up on our doorstep. This one was smaller, with patches of grey and white fur. It looked up at us imploringly, as if to say: 'I’m here to apply for the cat vacancy.'

“Somewhere in Auckland’s suburbs, it seems, there’s an inexhaustible supply of unloved cats.” Keep reading...