Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Of these sites, the ones where there was a high level of management, and where
people felt a sense of attachment and responsibility for the place, were the ones
where opposing views on the feral colonies were most clearly articulated. These were
the allotments and the cemetery, where the presence of wild nature was seen both as
a good thing—the cats were admired and, in the case of the allotments, seen as
useful in keeping down vermin—and a bad thing—they were 'out of place' in a
cultivated and ordered space (particularly in the cemetery). Thus, in these spaces,
the presence of feral colonies served both to fracture and to cement social
relationships. Even on the wildest site, next to the church, there was a history of
conflict. Only in the left-over space on the industrial estate, colonised by weeds and
cats, and in the familiar space of the shopping precinct, where the cats were
decorative and pet-like (so long as no-one attempted to touch them), was there an
absence of conflict. Interestingly, another (active) industrial space, a British
Petroleum (BP) oil refinery, was also in a sense a part of the 'wild', being a habitat
for foxes, deer, rabbits and rats as well as feral cats, and the cat colony here was
tolerated by the company, which paid for neutering to control the population.
Figure 3.1
A wild space in the city: invisible feral colony with feeding bowl, lower
left.
Source:
Authors' photograph
