Cat sanctuary black cat. See below for details - photo by fofurasfelinas (Flickr)
This is a collage of two photographs of a cat sanctuary in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. This town is at the intersection of the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. The photographs are by the well known and brilliant photographer fofurasfelinas
, Giane Portal. Giane combines her love of photography and cats to create the best cat photographs on Flickr.
This special cat sanctuary houses 300 cats and this is their forever home as the sanctuary has adopted them. They don’t need rescuing! And I can see why. The limit for the sanctuary is 300 and it has been reached apparently.
Three outstanding thoughts come to me when looking at these photographs….
1. The colours are bright and the coat colours and patterns of the cats look in keeping with the overall colour scheme – purely a visual, aesthetic thing.
2. Does the variety of cat coat types in these very interesting pictures tell us anything about the most typical cat types in Brazil? Perhaps not but this is a pretty good cross section.
3. It shows how well the so called solitary cat can adapt to getting along with many other cats (and humans, lets not forget). The domestic cat is very adaptable.
Just out of interest I counted the coat types and the result is tabled below (did I get it wrong? – it is quite an interesting test to count them). I counted from both photographs so there may be some overlap but this is not a scientific test:
| Coat type | Number |
White |
6 |
| Tabby and White |
7 |
| Black | 16 |
| Black and White | 1 |
| Ginger (red) see yellow cat & yellow tabby cats & orange Persian cat | 6 |
| Tortoiseshell(black) & black tortoiseshell |
1 |
| Siamese (or pointed) | 5 |
| Tabby |
3 |
| See Cat Color and Patterns |
This is not a comprehensive list but two things jump out. In these photographs, black cats are by far the most numerous and there are also a relatively high number of Siamese cats or pointed cats and they look like they could be purebred Siamese. There may have been a single source of rescue in regard to the pointed cats as these don’t look like rescue cats.
So, are black cats the most common on the planet? Not sure but I have two! Well one is black and white. What is also interesting is that black cats are the least popular, probably because of the historical association with witchcraft and superstition, which is still alive.
I don’t see any statistics on the most common cat coat types world wide but simply judging by experience I would say the most common cat coats are:
- tabby and white
- tabby
- black and white (see Tuxedo cats)
- black
Photo above by Miriam Cardoso de Souza - " BIENAL PB CXS SUL/2010
Foz do Iguaçu, is known for the Iguaçu Falls, which has a flow capacity equal to three times that of Niagara Falls.
If you want to donate to the sanctuary I would recommend that you contact Giane Portal through her Flickr home page.
