#322: Tracie talks with filmmaker Cathe Neukum about Feral, her deeply moving documentary chronicling the rescue of cats left trapped and abandoned in lower Manhattan after 9/11. Cathe explains how an earlier career making wildlife films—and an unexpected encounter with feral cats in her own Midtown neighborhood—led her to join forces with Urban Cat League’s Mike Phillips just before the 9-11 attacks. Armed with a small camera, she followed Mike into the devastated area, where they searched t...
Sep 21
19 min
#321: Filmmaker Megan Liz Smith joins Tracie to talk about her moving short documentary Cat Lady, featured in the 9th Annual New York Cat Film Festival, premiering September 26th in New York City. The film follows DeAnn, a devoted caretaker whose daily four-hour feeding route for community cats has become both a mission and a way of life. Megan and Tracie explore the complicated reality of TNR and colony caregiving: what happens when animals become completely dependent on you, how easily care...
Sep 14
16 min
#320: Filmmaker Asako Ushio joins Tracie to talk about her extraordinary documentary set on Japan’s remote Tashiro Island, where cats live in a fascinating space somewhere between wildness and domestication. Featured in the 9th Annual NY Cat Film Festival, premiering September 26th in New York City, the film follows a photographer devoted to documenting the island’s cats while revealing a much bigger story: an aging human population, a cat colony largely left to nature, and an uncertain futur...
Sep 7
17 min
#319: Documentary filmmaker Molly Dennis joins Tracie to talk about her film Cat People, which will be featured in the 9th Annual New York Cat Film Festival, premiering September 26th in New York City. The documentary shines a light on the remarkable network of veterinarians, trappers and everyday volunteers caring for Greece’s estimated three million stray cats. Molly describes following the people who devote their own time, money and energy to Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), feeding colonies and ...
Aug 31
18 min
#318: Stephen Quandt of https://catbehaviorhelp.com/ talks about the various ways that children can be involved in choosing a cat from a shelter and then enhancing the bond in living with them. Children on the autism spectrum may get particular benefits from the right cat entering their life, which Stephen explains.
Aug 24
15 min
#317: Mikel Maria Delgado of FelineMinds consulting talks about all the ways that cats can find to wake you up in the middle of the night — and how to manage nocturnal cat activity.
Aug 17
12 min
#316: Mike Phillips tells the history of the Urban Cat League — rescuing cats after the World Trade Center bombing, making a refuge for them — and continuing to improve the lives of street cats to this day.
Aug 10
19 min
#315: A listener wrote Tracie to ask how it was possible that two different cats she's had want to get in the shower with her! Resident cat expert Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado discusses the likelihood of this unusual feline predilection and how to handle a water-loving cat.
Aug 3
10 min
#314: The nonprofit EveryCat Health Foundation financed a study across 5 countries of mammary tumors in cats, with surprising results explained by Dr. Maggie Placer, the veterinarian who is the Science Program Manager for the Foundation.
Jul 27
28 min
#313: Dan Rimada is leading the push to legalize and protect bodega cats by creating a citywide archive of cats in NYC bodegas (estimates are 5,500 of them) which he and fellow volunteers have started documenting through field visits, photos, owner conversations, and release forms to get them legalized so the bodegas they protect against rodents don’t have to pay a fine.
Jul 20
15 min
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