Women Devoted To Their Jetty Cats

GOLD BEACH, Ore. - The sound of Ursula Elliott's approaching Volvo creates a stir within the rocks and crevices of the Rogue River's south jetty.

First, several pairs of eyes stare out of dark holes between the big boulders that keep back the sea. Then, one by one, the feral cats come out of their hiding places to greet their benefactor.

Up pop two old female cats, "Mama Kitty" and "Zamora," who see Elliott and playfully rub each other's sides the way tamer cats do in the warm homes dotting the coastline.

Elliott approaches, carrying a large bowl of Whiskas and cooked macaroni that is to be dinner for the 15 feral cats.

Elliott, her friend Janis Heuser and the 15 "jetty cats" that live among Gold Beach's waterside rocks have a special relationship that can make even the grumpiest of dog people feel like purring.

What started as an agreement between the two women to use Christmas gift money to help neuter a few stray cats five years ago has turned into a labor of devotion Heuser and Elliott show to the misfit ragamuffins who call the jetty home.

Elliott, a retired Sacramento bike-shop owner, and Heuser, a preacher's wife, have given up the simple life in Gold Beach to care for these and hundreds of other unwanted cats.

Along the way they've also caught, medically treated, tamed and adopted close to 500 cats abandoned at the jetty and other places around Curry County.

They've given up money, vacations, sleep and portions of their homes to transform unwanted and wild cats into household pets.

"How a town treats their stray animals shows what kind of heart the town has," Heuser says.

Comforts of house pets

Given up as house pets and considered unadoptable, the jetty cats get all the comforts of house pets - they're spayed or neutered, have all their shots and are well-fed - from Elliott and Heuser, who have resigned themselves to making the cats' jetty lives as comfortable as possible.

The cats dine in wooden feeding "condos" set on the rocks to protect their food from seagulls, get regular trips to the vet and visits from Elliott, who motors to the jetty from her nearby house at 5 p.m. daily.

"I go down there no matter what," Elliott says. "Sometimes the wind is blowing 75 miles per hour and I have to hold onto the side of one of the condos. But they have to eat."

Then the felines return to the caverns of the jetty to fish, fight, play, sleep and eke out a life that both women are convinced is a happy one.

"They like each other," Elliott says. "Sometimes they hate each other. But like it or not, it's a community and I know they're happier here."

But life as jetty cat was far from happy in December 1992, when Elliott - a devout dog person - felt herself drawn to the jetty at the mouth of the Rogue River.

A native of Germany, Elliott and her husband, Lee, had retired to a house just a few yards from the jetty. But the Elliotts rarely ventured near the cats because their Rottweiller, Friedel, was a true cat-hater.

When Friedel died, Elliott's defenses were gone.

"I thought, `Oh, I'm not going to get involved. I can't do this,' " Elliott says. "But I started feeding them."

Jetties have been pet dumping-grounds along the Oregon Coast for decades, and word of a retired German lady feeding the Gold Beach cats began to spread.

Heuser, who lives south of Gold Beach, heard of Elliott and tracked her down.

They formed an alliance to collect the jetty cats, spay and neuter them and find them suitable homes.

They each pledged to take $100 from their December '92 Christmas fund and set up a fund with a local veterinarian to embark on their project.

Elliott and Heuser formed a nonprofit group called Jetty Cats Plus; Elliott oversees the daily care for the jetty cats, while Heuser handles all the adoptions - which they call their "Plus" part.

In the beginning, there were 39 jetty cats. But the first few that were adopted out fled their new homes and ended up returning to the jetty - a move that convinced the pair that the animals preferred to remain in their feral community.

Cat tales

Now there are just 15 of the original jetty cats left.

And there are stories about each.

Like the time one jetty cat followed Elliott home, and stayed. The cat then disappeared, only to return with a friend. The friend then went to get his girlfriend; now all three live together in Elliott's back yard.

Or the time Arthur, an orange jetty cat, attacked and severely scratched a man who was abusing other jetty cats. The wounds led police to the man, who turned out to be wanted on a warrant.

Or the time Arthur was adopted out to a family with a cat-hating dog. Arthur fled back to the jetty, then appeared to summon his compatriots into a main jetty cavern. Elliott and Heuser, who were feeding at the time, could hear Arthur whine and meow as he told his story to a packed house.

"After that," Elliott says, "none of the jetty cats would let us get near them for days. They didn't trust us."

The pair spend their off-hour time rummaging up food donations and trying to raise money to pay for vet bills, which last year topped $4,000.

Elliott, who had planned to spend her retirement years traveling to Hawaii and Europe, instead takes two weeks off a year from her jetty work.

"That was it," Elliott says. "This was going to be paradise. Now, I scoop up cat poop and chase wild cats all day."

The jetty cats have inspired Heuser, a former veterinary assistant, to get her biology degree and apply for veterinary school. She is set to enroll at Oregon State University's vet school next fall.

But she'll return from Corvallis to help spay, neuter and adopt unwanted cats in Curry County.

Elliott and Heuser will never turn their backs on the jetty cats.

"Just look what two people can do," Heuser says.