Zih Gatos de Lupita

Some of you may know the rooftop cats that live at Coconuts. About 8 years ago Momma Kitty had two litters before we could catch her and fix her, and we couldn't just watch her and her babies starve on the rooftop of Coconuts where it seemed they had been abandoned to their fates. Not long afterward she disappeared and left us with all her babies.

This was the second batch that was born back in June of 2010. Clockwise beginning with the black kitten we have Sombrita, Jerica, Tom and Mimi. Sombrita was given to the singer Michelle who apparently lost it the same day.

The first litter was only 3 kittens, another orange cat we named Jerry, a calico named Tigrita and a mottled brown and gray furball we call Brunela.

In addition to the two cats of our deceased neighbor doña Cari, we all of a sudden found ourselves with 8 cats. Earlier this year a black and white pregnant cat with no voice showed up on our rooftop and adopted us. We called her Kiti. Now we had 9!

Lupita has diligently cared for these cats, the first cats she ever had in her life, having all of them spayed and neutered and vaccinated. Even when we've had hard times and no money, the cats were always well fed and cared for. But they remain extremely feral and aloof, and most won't let a human get near them. They stay on the roof and get along quite well with visiting cats looking for a handout as well as a family of tlacuaches that lives here, too.

Then about 3 months ago someone put a blind very old and sick male cat on the rooftop of Coconuts. We tried to care for it but it died. But it also infected several of the other cats with a disease that looked like sarna. About two months ago we found the prettiest and friendliest of the cats, Jerica, dead on the ground of the property next to the panadería "El Buen Gusto". She had barely shown any symptoms of illness, not nearly as bad as her sibling, Jerry. We managed to trap Jerry and get him to our good friends at the Sociedad Protectora de Animales de Zihuatanejo, and they applied a medicine that apparently cured him.

Jerry and Jerica had always been close, and she was the most popular of the family. Here they are during better times.

After Jerica died all the cats were sad, especially Tom & Jerry who moped, cried and howled a lot.

Not long afterwards someone stole Kiti.

Then a few days later Prieto, one of doña Cari's cats, got hit by a vehicle. We rushed him to the vet, but nothing was broken. With a little TLC he rebounded and is now back to his old aloof (but lovable) self.

Then sadly yesterday we found Jerry in the street under a neighbor's car, unable to move his back legs, howling in pain. Even though at any given time there are half a dozen people sitting on the sidewalks around our home watching the street, nobody saw anything. And Jerry hardly ever went into the street, so the whole thing was very strange and unexpected. We rushed him to a vet who was visiting our friends at the Sociedad Protectora de Animales but there was nothing to be done except put him out of his misery so that he wouldn't suffer. So we're all a little sad today, especially Lupita because these are her "babies".

Adios Jerica. Adios Jerry. Esperamos que estés muy bien, Kiti.