World without Cats (37 page)

“Yep. It’s two thousand from sixty-seven,” Vera said triumphantly. By the way, I read something else today in a vet journal.”

“Oh?”

“It seems that feline panleukopenia is gone.”

Noah frowned. “What do you mean, gone?”

“Gone. As in wiped off the face of the earth. All of the feral cats that were picked up for the project happened to be free of the virus. Destroy the host and destroy the parasite.”

“I’ll be damned. It’s an ill wind that has a silver lining … or some such adage.”

Vera laughed. “No, I think you mean ‘Every cloud blows no good.’”

In time, the many breeding programs across the planet successfully brought the species
Felis catus
back from the brink of extinction. The domestic cat was removed from the endangered species list.

One day, at breakfast, Vera said, “Noah, why don’t we invite Dorothy and Angelo to spend a few days with us? We haven’t seen them since the conference two years ago.”

Noah looked up from the paper, put down his coffee, and rubbed his chin. “Do you think they’d come all the way from Atlanta?”

“You won’t know until you ask them.”

“Okay, sounds good to me. I’d like to see them.”

“We might spend a day at the beach, have a barbeque on the weekend. We could invite Gary and Jane. You think they’d make the trip from Los Angeles?”

“Sure they would. It’s not that long a drive. I can send Angelo an e-mail right now. When do you want to have them here?”

“How about late June?” She glanced at a calendar. “We don’t have anything scheduled for the week of the twenty-fourth. Is that okay with you?”

Noah nodded.

Noah and Vera picked up Angelo and Dorothy at LAX. The ride back to Camarillo gave them a chance to catch up on their comings and goings.

“How’s your little girl?” asked Dorothy.

“Oh, she’s great. She’s learning the alphabet, and she loves playing with the kittens.”

“But aren’t they fully grown now?” asked Angelo.

Vera laughed. “The first pair are fully grown. I’m talking about their kittens–their first litter.”

“Of course,” he said. “I should have realized.”

On the day of the barbeque, Noah puttered with the grill. Vera was in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables for the salad. Dorothy set out paper plates and condiments. Angelo sat in a lawn chair nearby, watching Lilith playing with four kittens on the deck.

Vera had taken a male kitten from the second litter of bullet cats so that she could breed it with Eve. She had called it Luke after adding New Testament figures to the list of biblical names. When the two cats reached sexual maturity, they soon generated their first litter. Now there were six cats at the Chamberlin home, and visitors had to watch where they stepped, lest they squash one of the animals. Three-year-old Lilith delighted in the cats, bringing Vera and Noah considerable amusement.

Gary and Jane arrived at noon.

“Hello, Dr. Kraakmo,” Gary said when he saw Angelo.

“Ah, hello Gary. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? Please, call me Angelo. I think we’ve known each other long enough to drop the formalities, no? I won’t call you Dr. McKeever if you don’t call me Dr. Kraakmo, okay?”

Gary grinned. “Fair enough,” he replied.

In the kitchen Vera wondered why Kal was late.
He’s usually quite prompt,
she recalled.

On cue, the doorbell chimed. Vera shepherded Kal to the backyard. “Noah,” she called, “Everyone is here. I think you can load up the barbeque now.”

“Will do,” said Noah. Soon the guests and their hosts were relaxing in the shade of the trees, sipping drinks.

“Tell me, Gary,” said Angelo, “what are you working on at UCLA?”

“I’m looking at controlling elements in hemoglobin synthesis. Fudderman has a large grant for sickle-cell work, and I’m working on a small piece of the project.”

“Are you able to use the skills you picked up from the FHF work?”

“Not really. However, I am drawing on the earlier work I did with Noah on MEFA, a disease that has a lot in common with sickle-cell.”

Dorothy asked, “And you, Jane; how are you spending your time?”

“Well, I guess you could call me a freelance writer. I’ve been writing essays and articles for magazines. I’ve had two published so far.”

“Really? Where?”

“The first one was a short essay on the importance of domestic animals to us humans. It appeared in
Reader’s Page
on the web
this February. The other one just came out in
Newstime.
It’s a kind of first-person account of the bullet work we did with the cats–an ‘I-was-there’ description. It’s rather long, so they’re publishing it in three installments.”

“Why that’s just wonderful,” Dorothy enthused. “I’ll pick up a copy of the magazine. Do you have a copy of the first article?”

“You can read it on their website, if you’re interested.”

Vera said, “I have a copy. You can read it today, if you like. I’ll get it for you after we eat.”

“How about that novel you were always talking about?” asked Vera.

“Ah, yes,” answered Jane, “the novel. Well, I’ve been keeping a computer file with ideas. I’m homing in on a plot that concerns a veterinarian who gets involved with the personal lives of many of her patients—or rather the companions of her patients. You’ll never guess who the model for my protagonist is.” She smiled smugly. “Hint: it’s a female vet.”

Vera reddened. “I never got involved in the personal lives of my patients,” she protested.

“Oh?” chuckled Jane. “And how is it that Dorothy is here with us today?”

“That’s different … I think.” Now all present were laughing.

Jane added, “I’m also working on an expository article on the growing cat population for a veterinary magazine.”

“That’s great,” said Vera, happy to change the subject. “Would you like me to look it over when it’s finished?”

“Oh, thanks so much. That would be wonderful. I was going to ask you.”

“Look at the child,” said Angelo, pointing at Lilith. “Look how she enjoys playing with the kittens. Think about it. All over the world, there are children playing with cats. Adults too. We came so close to losing the species …

The others were silent, contemplating Angelo’s remark. Finally, Noah rose. “Got to check on the goodies.” He walked over to the barbeque and picked up the tongs. Gary and Kal soon followed.

“Looks like a stag party over there,” Vera observed. Let’s join them.” The women went with the men, but Angelo strolled over to where Lilith was amusing herself with the kittens.

The child looked up at Angelo and smiled. “Kittekat,” she said, pointing to the frolicking animals.

“Yes, kitty cat. In Norwegian, that’s
katte
. It is spelled
K
-
A
-
T
-
T
-
E
.”

Lilith cocked her head and stared at Angelo.
“Katte,”
she said, pronouncing it perfectly.

“Yes!” Angelo cried out,
“Katte
. You can speak Norwegian!” The group chatting at the barbeque looked over at Angelo’s outburst.

“Looks like those two have struck up a friendship,” Vera remarked.

They watched as Angelo picked up one of the kittens. He nestled the tiny cat in the palm of one hand, on its back. With his other hand, he began stroking its belly. “Nice kitty,” he said. “Pretty poossy cat …
pen katte … nydelig katte.”

Vera raised her eyebrows.

“Norwegian for
pretty kitty
and
beautiful kitty
,” Dorothy whispered. “He’s always saying that to our cats.”

“This is the guy who used to say that he didn’t like cats,” Noah pointed out in a hushed voice.

Meanwhile, Angelo, oblivious to the others, continued to stroke the kitten that was now lying back, eyes closed and purring so loudly that Lilith could hear it.

“Katte
purring,” she said.

Angelo smiled. “Yes, the cat is purring. You have quite a vocabulary, little one.” He continued petting the creature in his hand, murmuring to it all the while. All at once, he became aware of the crowd over by the barbeque. He looked up to find their eyes were on him. “Scandaloose,” he muttered, just loud enough that the group heard him. They burst out laughing. Angelo shrugged, and then he smiled.

For
Felis catus
it was not …

The end

Epilogue
 

Fifteen years after the first litters of bullet-carrying kittens were born, the domestic cat had regained its status as a common household pet.

One fall morning, an hour before sunrise, Lilith, now in her second year of high school, was already up completing a homework assignment she had been too tired to finish the night before. Vera and Noah were still sound asleep. Noah was jarred awake by the ringing of his phone.

He glanced at the clock by the bed.
Six thirty. Who calls at such an hour?
Suddenly, he was wide-awake. He recalled the time many years before when Gary McKeever had phoned him early in the morning to tell him of the theft of his research cats.

Vera too was now awake. Noah put the phone to his ear. “Yes,” he said. “Who is it?”

A voice answered, “This is Dr. Lars Sundstrom calling from Stockholm on behalf of the Alfred Nobel Foundation. May I speak with Dr. Noah Chamberlin or Dr. Vera Barnett, please?”

Author’s Note
 

This tale is fiction, of course. Nevertheless, the actuality of emerging viruses is well documented. Ebola appeared on the epidemiological scene only about forty years ago. We are still attempting to understand where such “new” viruses come from—where they hide in nature.

Australia’s island state of Tasmania is home to the world’s largest living carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian devil (
Sarcophilus harrisii).
In the late 1990s a mysterious cancer appeared in these animals, whose population then numbered about one hundred fifty thousand. Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), as the cancer is called, may be caused by a virus or it may be a DNA defect; we don’t yet know. The disease gives rise to tumors that develop around the faces and mouths of the creatures, hampering their ability to catch prey and feed. Once a devil shows signs of the disease, death by starvation is inevitable. To date, over 90 percent of the animals have died. Some biologists fear that the species may become extinct. It took over ten years for DFTD to become widely known, presumably because the Tasmanian devil is not part of our everyday experience or economy.

Throughout the United States, a mysterious disease named Colony Collapse Disorder is wiping out entire bee colonies. Beekeepers in several states first observed this phenomenon in 2006. The bee decline appears to be associated with the bite of a tiny parasitic fly. In addition to honey production, bees are important pollinators of a variety of agricultural crops; the economic consequences of a major die-off of our bees would be devastating. Unlike DFTD, Colony Collapse Disorder, however, is frequently in the news, because, of course, honeybees play a major economic role.

The idea that new viruses might appear by the linking of genes from other viruses, as occurred in this story at the Seattle Zoo, is not far-fetched. Mutation of viral genes is common. Recombination of genes from different viral strains is well established.

A scenario such as I’ve presented here is a nightmare that health professionals fear. The worldwide epidemic of influenza caused by a strain of virus known as H1N1 gave rise to the fear that this virus could give rise to a pandemic reminiscent of the 1918 disaster. A decade ago, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus elicited similar fears. Avian forms of influenza are also a constant threat.

If an FHF-like virus were to appear in cats, cattle, swine, or, dare I suggest, in humans, would we be able to control it?

Currently the United States spends billions a year fighting real or imagined human foes. Perhaps we should provide support to further the goal of understanding viruses found in humans and in wild and domestic animal populations. The threat is decidedly greater than that of any human enemy.

Bonham Richards

May 31, 2012

Acknowledgments
 

I received invaluable technical information from many individuals. Nevertheless, it is quite possible—even probable—that errors have made their way into the story. Any such mistakes are solely mine.

My thanks to veterinarians Dr. Edgar M. Church and Dr. Karen Anderson Moore for information on veterinary practice and surgery as it pertains to cats.

Dr. Pierre Comizzoli, Reproductive Physiologist with the National Zoological Park, Washington, DC, provided essential technical details pertaining to feline surgery and artificial insemination, as well as feline gestation.