Man searches fire sites for lost cats
SANTA ROSA — Who does that?!
The question burst from fire-displaced Kristy Militello upon learning that one of the two pet cats she long feared were killed in the October inferno, and then the second, were painstakingly stalked and rescued by a convalescing federal policeman who night after night, on his own time, employs fairly sophisticated technology and infinite patience to catch lost cats.
For weeks, Militello and her family mourned the loss of their home off Riebli Road and of their brother-and-sister cats. Out of the blue, the actions of a good Samaritan brought Cleo and the seriously burned and starving Brutus back to the family.
“Who goes out at 3 or 4 in the morning and catches cats for people?” Militello marveled. Shannon Jay does. He lives in Forestville and has worked in law enforcement for 29 years. At present he’s on sick leave, following the removal three months back of a benign brain tumor.
Jay is nearly 53, and a cat lover. A year ago an indoor cat he adored ran off.
“I was completely beside myself,” said the compact and gentle-edged National Park Service police officer.
He searched for his cat but was foiled, so he consulted with renowned cat detective Kim Freeman. Some of what she advised seemed counterintuitive, Jay said, but he found his missing cat.
Then came the historically deadly and destructive North Bay fires. Aware that many residents could not round up their pets before fleeing, Jay weeks ago set out to find cats that survived but were terrified and possibly injured, and prone to hiding in daylight and looking for food at night.
Jay also brought Freeman from Texas to Sonoma County to lead a seminar on how to find lost cats. Many nights, Jay puts into action what he has learned from Freeman and from experience.
He actively searches burned areas for cats, concentrating on the hills and flats of Riebli and Wallace roads and Fountaingrove. Other volunteers are focusing on finding, catching and reuniting cats with their families in the ravaged Coffey Park area.
Often accompanied by his girlfriend, Heather Eisenberg, Jay cruises burned neighborhoods armed with flashlights, motion-tripped trail cameras, a thermal imaging scope, night-vision goggles, trapdoor cages “and lots of smelly bait.”
He may track a wary and elusive cat for days or weeks before at last enticing it with mackerel to enter a trap cage.
“Trapping is the culmination of a long effort,” he said.
So far he has trapped 14 cats.
Jay is happy to be in the company of other animal lovers who also are toiling to find lost pets and reunite them with their families.
Amid the ruins of Coffey Park neighborhood, Jennifer Petruska and her mother, Kary Wind, and other volunteers have consistently put out food and water for cats, and have caught about 35.