Black cats unfairly shunned, stigmatized, say regional animal rescue groups

Lucian picked his owners outside a grocery store.
Provided
Lucian picked his owners outside a grocery store.
Lucian is one lucky black cat. The emerald-eyed feline has been living in the lap of luxury since being rescued from the streets of Albany nine years ago by the Pecha family of Falls Village.
Today Lucian lives in Litchfield with his owner, David Pecha, where he spends his days cat-napping, bird-watching, attention-seeking and occasionally cajoling with a neighborhood fox.
Unlike Lucian, not all black cats end up in forever homes. According to regional animal rescue groups, black pets in general, and black cats in particular, are often shunned by prospective adopters.
Enter National Black Cat Day 2024, which falls on Oct. 27 this year. The annual awareness day is designed to support and promote the beauty and well-being of black cats and to dispel myths and superstitions that have haunted them for centuries, particularly around Halloween.
The day plays a vital role in advocating for welfare and adoption of black cats.
Shunned through no fault of their own
“I’ve had someone come up to me and say they would take anything but black,” said Beverly Ditto of Collaborative Cats, a feline foster home-based rescue organization serving Southern Columbia and Northern Dutchess counties of New York. “There are black cat lovers, but that is rare.”
Ditto, who has owned several black cats, said she has found them to be among the “sweetest and most lovable” of felines, second to orange cats, and not deserving of being feared.
She attributes their lack of popularity to long-held superstitions about them being harbingers of bad luck or that they are evil doers associated with Satanic rituals. Black cats also blend in with shadows, giving them a spooky appearance.
Because superstitions about black cats are reinforced around Halloween, it is common for shelters to put adoptions on hold. According to the Smithsonian, some adoption agencies and shelters won’t even consider placing black cats in homes until after Halloween for fear they will be tortured or sacrificed.
“All the shelters generally are very nervous about adopting out before Halloween,” said Ditto. “There are people out there to be known to harm black cats. I haven’t encountered that, but it has been a big worry amongst the rescues.”
Currently, Collaborative Cats, which takes in stray, abandoned, injured and homeless felines, has several black kittens available for adoption, including Roary, Jacques and Lucifer, all described as sweet and playful.
The organization, which is not a shelter, said Ditto, is constantly seeking new foster homes for its approximately 100 felines.
Raven and Bagheera
At The Little Guild in West Cornwall, two black cats, Raven and Bagheera, arrived at the shelter in August and are awaiting adoption. Both are about a year old and have the sweetest dispositions, said the shelter’s executive director Jenny Langendoerfer.
“It is interesting that people do like to see unique colorings and markings,” she noted. “But the one thing about black cats is that they make the most wonderful pets.”
Langendoerfer described Bagheera, a sturdy, green-eyed young male, as a “mini panther, very silly and very sweet,” and 1-year-old Raven as very playful.
Lauren Mucha, one of the caregivers at The Last Post cat sanctuary and cat retirement home in Falls Village where 124 cats reside, said about 20 of its feline residents are black.
She said she is perplexed as to why people would shy away from dark-coated cats, as they don’t deserve the negative image.
One cat in particular, Jinx, has been a resident at The Last Post for the last eight years and does not have a mean bone in its body, said Mucha, who described him as a Velcro cat, a “real cuddler.”
This cat picked his family
Not everyone is on board with the negative black cat spin. For some, a visit from a black cat means good luck or prosperity. In some cultures, black cats, considered sleek and seductive with their all-knowing yellow and green eyes, are even worshipped.
Take Lucian’s owner, David Pecha, for instance.
The mini household panther was rescued by Pecha’s son, Alex, about nine years ago while attending college in Albany. Alex and a friend had emerged from a grocery store “and the cat came flying out from under a car, meowing at them and trailing them.”
It was the end of the school year, and because the cat appeared to be pretty well cared for, said Pecha, they thought it might have escaped during the confusion of the move.
After failing to find a no-kill shelter nearby, they took Lucian back home with them to Falls Village and posted “cat found” posters around campus, but no one came forth to claim the black cat, said Pecha.
Before long, Lucian befriended a doppelganger named Bagheera, owned by the Atwood family just up the street, Pecha recalled.
“He was the spitting image of Lucian, and they hung out together. You would see the two of them running around the streets in the middle of town.”
When Pecha relocated to Litchfield a few years ago, so did Lucian, who has since settled into his new quarters, according to his owner. He considers his cat to be more like a loyal dog, with a unique personality.
Unlike other cats, Lucian doesn’t use a water bowl. Instead, he laps up his drink from a tall glass, filled with cool water straight from the fridge.
And as for snow, the pampered feline will have nothing of it. “He doesn’t do winter,” said Pecha. “He’ll put one paw in the snow, and it’s ‘Oh, hell no.”
Below are several black cats up for adoption at The Little Guild in West Cornwall, and Collaborative Cats in Ancramdale, NY. Additional details are available by contacting the rescue groups either by phone or via their website. Photos provided.
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Cobbler n’ Cream
5 to 7 p.m.
Freund’s Farm Market & Bakery | 324 Norfolk Rd.
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Cocktail Party
5 to 7 p.m.
Douglas Library | 108 Main St.
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Boot Drive
8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
North Canaan Fire Co. | 4 E. Main St.
3rd Annual Fly-In
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Triumph Airfield | 547 W. Main St.
Canaan Railroad Station Museum
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
New England Accordion Connection
9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
Canaan Carnival
3 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Berkshire Resilience Brass Band
5 to 8 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
Barbecued Chicken Dinner
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St. Martin of Tours | 4 Main St.
Canaan Fireman’s parade
6 p.m.
Rosa setigera is a native climbing rose whose simple flowers allow bees to easily collect pollen.
After moving to West Cornwall in 2012, we were given a thoughtful housewarming gift: the 1997 edition of “Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.” We were told the encyclopedic volume was the definitive gardener’s reference guide — a fact I already knew, having purchased one several months earlier at the recommendation of a gardener I admire.
At the time, we were in the thick of winter invasive removal, and I enjoyed reading and dreaming about the trees and shrubs I could plant to fill in the bare spots where the bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose and other invasive plants had been.Years later, I purchased the 2011 edition, updated and inclusive of plants for warm climates.
On the cover of the new edition, a quote from Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post boasts, “Michael Dirr is the oracle of ornamental horticulture. I trust his judgements implicitly.”I heartily disagree with Mr. Higgins:I blame this book — and my poor use of it — for some of my worst tree and shrub choices.
I realize some readers might find this declaration inflammatory. The book still occupies a place of high regard among experienced and novice gardeners alike, so please allow me to explain.
In addition to giving the reader his opinion on the aesthetic worthiness of the woody plants included in the book, Mr. Dirr makes good on the book’s title with a review of each species’ hardiness. What makes a tree hardy?It thrives in its intended site, resisting disease with leaves and bark not readily eaten by insects and other critters.
Non-native plants make up the majority of the recommended hardy plants in the book.And here is why:Native trees and shrubs are, by evolution’s design, food source and host to our native fauna — critters large and small. There is no substitute equal to the fauna’s co-evolved flora.A native caterpillar cannot eat a kousa dogwood leaf, as it has not evolved to digest it.Non-native plants seemingly have the advantage if the lens we look through values pristine, uneaten leaves.
In the days when there were sufficient thriving ecosystems to maintain local habitats, a non-native specimen tree here and there was just fine.But where we live in Northwest Connecticut, our woods, meadows, marshes and other natural areas have, for a couple of decades, been severely compromised by invasives that have almost entirely removed the food sources for native insects. It is up to us — now — to plant native plants to save the food chain.Without insects, not only will native animals die, but human food sources will also be at risk.
The security of our food pipeline seems a worthy exchange for some caterpillar-eaten leaves — and to be clear, we’re not talking about non-native infestations such as spongy moth, but rather native caterpillars, which are the singular food source for nesting birds.
My issue is that, in being a trusted source for plant selection, Dirr’s book should give equal — if not prioritized — space to information on ecological impact.For example, it would be good to know when selecting a tree, that a native oak provides food and other ecosystem services to more than 400 native animal species, while a native tulip poplar supports fewer than 30 — though that includes the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Including information on the birds and insects attracted to a given plant would enable reader to weigh these factors in choosing what to grow.But this information is not mentioned at all.
Dirr makes no mention of the role some of these plants have played in the degradation of our natural areas — an omission that is highly relevant, as many of the plants featured in his book are, in fact, invasive culprits. Plants like barberry, porcelain berry and tree of heaven are showcased for consideration alongside native plants without recognition of the devastating infestations they can manifest. Tree of Heaven is now responsible for hosting the spotted lanternfly, which is devastating crops.
Similarly Euonymous alatus (winged euonymous) and Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi) — two highly invasive plants touted in the book — have been banned or are close to being banned for sale from nurseries in the state of Massachusetts. To his credit, Dirr does point out the invasive nature of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet), calling it “a terrible and devastating escapee that terrorizes floodplains, fencerows and even open fields, reducing native vegetation to rubble.” Yet Japanese honeysuckle gets an understated warning, with Dirr describing this massively invasive shrub as “bullying their way into understory and open areas.”
The latest edition of Dirr’s book devotes seven pages of copy and photos to various Berberis species, about which Dirr waxes poetic. He notes the addition of “30 new cultivars” in the latest revision and complains that “this species is under assault for its aggressive invasive nature.” He refers to Berberis thunbergii — Japanese barberry, the most invasive of them all — as “the species of major importance in garden commerce.” This plant has already been outlawed for sale in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hamphsire and Maine.A few weeks ago, a bill was passed in Connecticut recognizing the harm of a broad group of invasive plants. Under this new legislation, barberry will be phased out from sale or transport by October 2028.
In understating the invasive nature of many non-natives and de-prioritizing the importance of native species, Dirr’s widely used reference may be partly responsible for many a devastated woodland, forest, meadow and marsh in New England — if not across the U.S.Certainly, the evolution of species, and scientific knowledge about the environment, is changing faster than new editions of books can be printed. I can only hope that if a new edition of Mr. Dirr’s reference book is in the works that it will account for this criteria we now know to be vital in plant selection.
Which brings me back to that quote on the cover from The Washington Post and the larger issue it suggests:Should “ornamental horticulture” get a pass when it comes to ecological survival?I think we can agree — it should not.The consequences are simply too destructive.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Foxtrot Farm & Flowers’ historic barn space during UAW’s 2024 exhibition entitled “Unruly Edges.”
Art lovers, mark your calendars. The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) returns July 17 to 21, with an exciting lineup of exhibitions and events celebrating the cultural vibrancy of the region. Spanning eight counties and over 130 venues, UAW invites residents and visitors alike to explore the Hudson Valley’s thriving creative communities.
Here’s a preview of four must-see exhibitions in the area:
1. Wassaic Project (37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic)
“So It Goes” is a powerful group exhibition curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick. The title, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” signals a reckoning with how we process the horrors of the world. Through play, reflection, and immersive scale, 43 artists respond with urgency and imagination. Installations can be seen throughout the town of Wassaic at Maxon Mills, Gridley Chapel, and Luther Barn, each space transformed by this deeply thoughtful show.
2. Foxtrot Farm & Flowers (6862 Route 82, Stanfordville)
“Queer Bestiary,” a group show curated by Charlotte Woolf, is inspired by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s book “Forest Euphoria.” The exhibition investigates queer ecology and human relationship to land through the work of 10 artists using painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography. The exhibit is accompanied by a variety of interactive experiences including tattoo pop-ups, karaoke, book readings, and pick-your-own flowers.
3. ChaShaMa North/ChaNorth (2600 Route 199, Pine Plains)
ChaShaMa North (ChaNorth) will have open studios all weekend and has partnered with Paradice Palase, a platform for emerging artists, to mount a site-specific sculpture exhibition featuring 20 artists entitled “Alone, You Are Heard.” On Saturday evening, July 19, stop by for Weird Music Night for an audio-visual synthesis of experimental music, performance art, and unexpected happenings. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience an eclectic lineup of acts that redefine the boundaries of performance.
4. Millbrook Arts Project(3 Friendly Lane, Millbrook)
The Millbrook Arts Project is hosting a curated exhibit entitled “Generated Utility” at the newly renovated gallery at the village library. The exhibit will feature the work of artists Natalie Beall and Kathy Greenwood. Additionally, visitors will have access to 12 open artists studios across town. The weekend culminates in a free outdoor concert on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at the Millbrook Bandshell. Enjoy the Indie-Folk sounds of Strawberry Runners and She Keeps Bees.
For more information and a complete list of participating artists and locations, visit: upstateartweekend.org