photo by Skopelitissa
Long before we ex-pats came here to live and enjoy life amongst the friendly people of Skopelos, probably way back in the history of this island, there was another ex-pat!
I am not a lover of cats, even though the Ancient Egyptians worshiped them. But as an Egyptian, when I first came to this island for a holiday, I recognized a particular breed of cats that had great similarity to the cats depicted on the ancient monuments of Egypt and often sculpted to keep eternal watch outside tombs of ancient kings and queens.
In a wholly unscientific way, by my own observation and by asking and listening to locals, I have identified the Skopelitan cat as lean and small and, by comparison to other imported cats, it looks almost under-nourished One such cat lives on my landlord's premises. It's markings are black and white (Egyptian paintings show all black). It's back legs are taller than its front legs, and when it sits it has the pronounced back-hunch common in ancient Egyptian sculpture and wall paintings. Another feature common in Egyptian depictions is that it has a marked narrowing of the face to a pointed chin ... almost triangular.
As a breed it is feral or on the edge of feral. That's possibly one of the reasons it is dying out. It has found it difficult to compete with the pet moggies, the fat cats, the gingers, the persians, that so many ex-pats have brought here. The newcomers have bred a riot and inter bred: they are favoured, pampered and wonderfully fed. The unwanted litters or the cats left behind when ex-pats move on and off the island for good, become garbage hunters, street cats, fed by tourists in summer and dying in winter when easy pickings disappear. The strongest survive and compete for diminishing winter urban food with the Skopelitan cat so most examples of the Skopelitan cats live in the woods and fields outside inhabited areas.
Along comes a good-minded body like SCAN that feeds the cats in winter. Of course, no-one discriminates for or against the Skopelitan cat, but most of the cats I see being fed in winter are not Skopelitan. When I mentioned the plight of the Skopelitan cats to SCAN members, no-one had ever heard that such a breed existed or even that it needed support to survive. as a distinct breed. That rather surprised me for, as I mentioned somewhere up top, I am not a cat lover. That won't endear me to SCAN members, nor to other cat lovers on the island, nor yet to the ex-pat community that in all innocence has created over time the circumstances that is extinguishing an ancient breed of cats that now must interbreed to survive.
It is a pity that we human beings intent on good should, through ignorance, do so much damage. We have done it throughout all history, destroyed local cultures, forcing populations to emulate our concept of right, holding our principles higher. But this story is not about wars and colonization, subjections of populations and ethnic cleansing. It is only about cats, the Skopelitan cat, a cat that probably started living in Skopelos, say, 3,000 or more years ago? If not, it certainly pre-dated all us ex-pats and our imported ginger and persian moggies.