Maiya worked with T-Town TNR to trap, neuter and return a cat colony of 18 near her midtown home, and now she is the primary caregiver of that colony, paying for the food with her own money from birthdays, Christmas and household chores.
The story of the cat colony has a double happy ending. Not only are the cats cared for, Mama Cat, the matriarch of the family, now has a permanent inside home with Maiya and her human family.
This rescue saga began two years ago when Maiya saw a kitten in an apartment parking lot near her home. Except, it wasn’t a kitten. It was a very thin, very skittish adult
cat. The little girl named the cat Mama.
“Then, I began seeing other cats—some kittens, all feral and skinny. I figured they were all strays, and Mama was about 4 years old. I felt so bad for them,” Maiya said.
When she found two abandoned orange kittens and a neighbor adopted them and bottle fed them, Maiya was determined to rescue Mama Cat.
“She was so shy I couldn’t get near her,” Maiya said. “Every day, before and after school, I called her.”
On weekends, that meant all afternoon. “I sat still and watched her. If I so much as moved an arm, she ran off.”
She sat outside with a bowl of dry food for Mama Cat. “Every day, I moved the food closer to me. Every single day.” One day, about six or eight months ago, “she let me touch her neck.” Then, a setback; the cat disappeared. “I was terrified. I cried every single day.”
Again, Maiya sat quietly and called her and—what a joy!—one afternoon Mama Cat appeared. Maiya and her mother, Sarah O’Banion, decided to try to get the cat spayed. “She has had at least eight litters,” Sarah said. “Two litters a year.” But before they could capture her, she disappeared again. Sarah put out an appeal for help via a Nextdoor social media post: “My daughter is attached to her and feeds her.”
This is when Maiya connected with TTown TNR, said Laura Redemann, the organization’s chairman of the board. When the group showed up with crates, Maiya was there to help them trap her. T-Town TNR’s Sally Sumrall was the lead trapper with teammates Abby Lehman and Redemann. “One day, I was calling her name,” Maiya said, “and all of a sudden, I heard a little noise in a back yard, and she came out. I was in shock. I grabbed her and quickly put her in a crate.”
That was the end of the cat’s vagabond life. “We decided Mama and Maiya deserved to live together,” Sarah said. They brought the cat inside to be a permanent indoor cat. It was not a hard decision after watching her daughter’s growing affection for the cat over two years.
“I have trapped a lot of feral colonies on the streets of Tulsa,” Redemann said, “and met a lot of different colony feeders, but none has surprised me more than Maiya. I am in total awe of this girl who feeds her colony when she gets home from school, who earns money to buy the food for her cats, who was eager to help TNR (trap, neuter, return) these cats, and who seemed to have a special rapport with a lot of them. I hope other young people learn from her example and come to realize that helping the community cats of Tulsa is being a part of something way bigger than themselves.”
“Will you get tired of caring for this colony?” I asked Maiya.
“Never. This is my hobby.”
The fifth-grader has other interests. Her favorite school subject is math. “Especially mental math,” she said. “I don’t like easy things; I like challenges.”
She likes reading nonfiction, especially about cats, dogs and horses. She likes riding horses, baking brownies and shopping. “I have always really loved animals. I like shopping, but I prefer shopping for my animals more than for myself.” And she likes “Heartland” on Netflix. “I’m addicted to it,” she said. And no wonder. It’s a Canadian series about a spunky teenager living on a horse ranch.
Most of all, she loves Mama Cat. “She’s very sweet and affectionate,” Maiya said. “I want her to be fat, but not too fat.”
Becoming a permanent inside cat seems to be an easy transition for Mama Cat, although she is still slightly skittish if Maiya is not around. It’s a good life. She stays close to the little girl and has her own American Girl doll bed to sleep on.
“You’re her safe person,” I said.
“And she’s my safe cat,” Maiya replied.■
