Serving with the tailed one at the Grodno zoo can be safely called a dream job. Instead of a workbook, there are whiskers and a tail, instead of salary there is a bowl of fresh raw meat and the workplace is a poultry house. However, it is forbidden for a cat to eat birds, the officially allowed prey are rats, mice and other rodents that can get to the birds, – the journalists of the Belarusian Sputnik tell.
"Basia came to us in the late autumn of 2022 as a small, helpless kitten. She was just thrown into the zoo. She was very thin, weak and full of parasites. The staff of the Birds department took the kitten for themselves. Basia lived in the office of the department manager all winter. In three months, the baby was cured and fattened," says Elena Petrova, head of the educational sector of the Grodno zoo.
And for a year and a half Basia has been successfully fighting rodents in the poultry house. The cat's work shift begins in the evening, when it is closed in a large two-story building, where the cat hunts mice all night.
"Basia is a good hunter, copes with her duties perfectly. Of course, she eats some of the loot, but she does not forget about her rescuers. Every morning, the employees of the poultry house find a traditional mouse "from Basia" under their offices, - continues Elena Petrova.
At the beginning of each working day, a furry zoo employee together with the department manager makes a mandatory tour of the territory. Employees say that Basia knows the route thoroughly and always runs ahead of her superiors. After all, she grew up in the zoo and considers it her home, she does not go outside the territory.
When the cat was still a little kitten, she had a dangerous lesson. Unknowingly, Basia went into the leopard's cage. However, at that moment the wild beast was full and only "played" with Basia, and at the same time taught her not to enter the cages of predators in the future. She tries to avoid monkeys, because they pinch painfully, does not enter the enclosure to ostriches, which can bite painfully too.
Basi's favorite treats are fresh raw meat, usually beef. Mice are in second place among the treats. She is indifferent to dry store food. Sometimes she likes to drink a cup of milk. But raw chicken meat, for obvious reasons, is strictly prohibited so that the cat does not have a desire to catch one of the zoo's pets.
By the way, Basia's name came from Grodno. There are two water towers in Grodno, examples of engineering architecture of the XIX – early XX centuries, which are popularly called Kasia and Basia. And it was by the name of one of them that the zoo staff gave the name to their furry pet.
Photos provided by the Grodno zoo