Cyprus, Part Five: Cats of Cyprus

Cyprus likes to call itself "the Island of Love", claiming to be the birthplace of Aphrodite, goddess of love. But it could equally be called "the Island of Cats".

There are cats everywhere: in cities, villages, and archaeological sites. In fact, there are more cats than humans on the island: the human population is about 1.2 million, while the estimated number of cats is 1.5 million!

During our visit, we came across two interesting stories relating to cats in Cyprus. In Limassol Archaeological Museum, we saw a cast of the skeleton of one of the earliest domesticated cats, which was buried with a human. The remains are dated to 9500-9000 B.C.E., which is about 5,000 years earlier than the well-known domestication of cats in Egypt. This discovery is relatively recent, and while it has been mentioned in some cat books I have read, such as The Lion in the Living Room by Abigail Tucker, this came as a surprise. I always look for cat-related items in museums, and most often find depictions of lions or Egyptian cat art. This time, one of the first items we saw was the cat skeleton with its explanation. This really made my day.

The other story was that cats were introduced to Cyprus by St. Helena in 328 C.E. to hunt the venomous snakes that were overpopulating as the result of a drought. There is a monastery called St. Nicholas of the Cats, where the cats are considered the descendents of these cats. It's hard to believe that cats would be effective in eradicating the snake population, but they were probably beneficial in hunting various types of vermin.

While tourists like me who love cats enjoy seeing, photographing, and sometimes touching cats while travelling, this situation is not actually in the cats' best interest. Like other Mediterranean locations, Cyprus is clearly experiencing cat overpopulation, and most of the cats end up suffering. I hope that there will be increasing awareness of the need to implement TNR and support managed community cat colonies.