Rome’s Legions of Stray Felines Becoming Fat Cats as Good Times Return to Italy

ROME —  Rome’s stray cats, which provided food for the city’s starving population during World War II, are growing fat on spaghetti and fresh liver as Italy’s fortunes rise.

Cats have prowled Roman streets since ancient times. Now, thousands of them live mostly in the ruins of Imperial Rome, playing and sleeping among the decapitated marble statues of the Forum and under the crumbling arches of the Colosseum.

Although Italy is not necessarily a cat-fancying country, the strays are looked after by a dedicated group of animal lovers, mostly women, who turn out every day to feed them.

Some are eccentric old ladies, lonely and down on their luck, for whom the cats are company and comfort. Others are people who do it simply because they like the animals.

Feeds 30 Cats

“I suppose I have a weakness for cats,” said Luciana Pollini, who returns from her office job in the evening to feed about 30 multicolored felines living in the ruins of Trajan’s Forum in the city center.

“I have seven of my own,” she said. “Some I took home from here when they were ill. I don’t like to see them suffer.”

She has been ministering to the Forum cats for more than 10 years. At first they just received family leftovers. Now she cooks extra spaghetti and buys fresh liver and canned food to feed them, because she can afford it.

Italy’s fortunes have risen over the last few years. Inflation has been brought under control, and the country is now vying with Britain as the world’s fifth-most-industrialized nation. There is an unemployment rate of almost 12%, but the capital’s shops bulge with expensive luxury items.

New Fat Cats

The previously thin and undernourished strays are reaping the benefits. A large and comfortable colony lives in the ruins of an ancient Roman water works surrounded by a bustling morning market. Stall owners throw them the meat scraps that used to be sold as cheap cuts for stews.

At Ostia Antica, just outside Rome, they enjoy picnickers’ leftovers and handouts from the bar.

But the cats are never entirely safe. In winter the weaker ones die of cold and disease.

“Kittens born in colonies who survive the first winter have a good chance,” said Antonio Iacoe, president of the National Animal Protection Society, a voluntary organization that has too little money to cope with all of the abandoned animals. “Those who suffer most are the abandoned cats.”

Cats, Dogs Abandoned

Hundreds of cats and dogs are abandoned every year, particularly in the summer, when families go on holiday. They join the thousands that Iacoe says are already out on their own.

The abandoned dogs roam in packs on the outskirts of the city. The cats, less street-wise than those born wild, often fall victim to cars, vivisectionists, fur dealers and practical jokers.

In Pollini’s colony, a female tabby lost an eye after small boys tied fireworks to her tail. Cats are often targets for stone-throwers.

Many Romans dislike cats. Some are frightened of them. Superstitious drivers will reverse down a street and drive out of their way to avoid passing a black cat, which is considered unlucky.

Health Hazard Denied

But Iacoe dismisses accusations that the strays are a hazard to health.

“If anything, they stop the spread of disease by killing rats and mice,” he said. “Rome would be overrun with vermin if it were not for the cats.”

Cats also have saved hungry Romans in times of need. During World War II, when food was scarce, families would sit down to a meal of “town rabbit.”

Old habits die hard and a restaurant outside Rome was closed a few months ago by health authorities who found dozens of cats in the freezer.