Feral Cats? Why Not Heirloom Cats?

I’ve always had some difficulties calling naturally-occurring outdoor cats “feral”. The Wikipedia definition of a feral organism is “one that has escaped from domestication and returned, partly or wholly, to a wild state.” Yet with cats, this is typically not the case. Most outdoor cats can’t be feral because they were never domesticated to begin with. These are simply cats living outdoors as cats.

True there are exceptions – lost or abandoned companion cats – socialized by people as kittens for adoption as pets – can revert to feral behaviors as a means of adapting to outdoor life. But, when they reproduce and create colonies – the bulk of the cats living in the colony – are technically not feral either --because they’ve had no concentrated human contact to tame them. If the litters aren’t removed from the outdoors when the kittens are 4-8 weeks old, they’ll never become companion cats – even if their mother and/or father were socialized. This is why it’s so critical to get kittens indoors while they’re still babies.

But, those kittens born and left outdoors – if they’re not feral and they’re not socialized – then what are they? Perhaps they’re heirloom cats. Again, from Wikipedia: “In the plant world, an heirloom plant is a cultivar that was commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but which is not used in modern large-scale agriculture. Many heirloom vegetables have kept their traits through open pollination, while fruit varieties, such as apples have been propagated over the centuries through grafts and cuttings. The trend of growing heirloom plants in gardens has been growing in popularity.”

Make a few substitutions to the above definition and you’ll see what I mean: Prior to the 1950’s the most common cats (cultivar) were the barn, yard and alley cats commonly living outdoors throughout our country – as many still do. The shelters (large-scale agriculture) do not use the heirloom cats for their production, but focus on the modified versions created by intense human socialization of their kittens. Many heirloom cats have kept their traits through open breeding (pollination), while fruit varieties (Siamese, Himalayan, Maine Coon, etc.) have been propagated over time through selective breeding of cats with like traits. The trend of heirloom cats in gardens has been growing in popularity – through a lack of available and affordable spay/neuter support for property owners blessed with naturally-occurring heirloom colonies in their yards.

No, I don’t expect to see a push to stop the misuse of the word “feral” with regard to unsocialized cats any time soon. But I do think that heirloom is more descriptive of these wonderful outdoor cats --whose lifestyle is a throwback to an earlier day. And, possibly more shelters would think twice before automatically killing heirloom cats as it doesn’t have the harsh connotation of “feral”, and would advocate stronger for their sterilization and return to their natural outdoor homes.

Genetically heirloom and companion cats are one and the same – but socially they’re worlds apart. We know from the grim shelter statistics that in Michigan alone over 70,000 cats are killed each year – many of these are heirloom cats that could easily continue living as outdoor wildlife – especially when they are fixed. Until we get spay/neuter to the cats that need it most we’ll have repeated annual bumper crops of heirloom kitties living the lives cats have lived since they first came over on the Mayflower. They don’t need to be saved, rescued or rehabilitated – all they need is to be fixed.