Until last week, the Germany holiday island of Rügen was best known for its sweeping cliffs and idyllic beaches. Now the Baltic resort is famous for its dead cat. Over the weekend, scientists in Germany revealed that an unidentified feline had died of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu. It had, apparently, been infected after devouring a wild bird. It was the first time that a mammal has perished of bird flu in Europe and symptoms of panic soon emerged. But what about the cat?
We know a few tantalising details of its biography. The fallen feline was white with black spots. It weighed 4.8 kilos. And it didn't have a name as such, (though it's fair to surmise that it probably wasn't known as Lucky). According to locals, it was a male stray, living on the picturesque west coast of Rügen not far from the quiet harbour village of Schaprode. (The area is popular with tourists - they hop on the local ferry to Hiddensee, a small car-free island where you get around by bike or horse-drawn carriage.)
We know, alas, little else. But we can imagine the cat hanging out in Rügen's sandy dunes and pine forests, whiling away the hours pursuing mice and chasing after wild geese. It would have frolicked in the nearby marshes. It may even have been happy. What is certain is that last week a local farmer who had been feeding the cat from time to time noticed that something was wrong. Tobias Woettendorf, an employee at the local crisis centre opened to deal with the outbreak, relived the cat's final moments. It was behaving "weirdly", he says. "It started running round in circles. It was basically a wild cat. But the farmer decided to take it in for the night. When he woke up the next morning and checked the pen the cat was dead."
The bereaved farmer immediately informed the authorities, who took the cat - let's call him Spotty - away for tests. Yesterday the farmer was said to be feeling OK, with no apparent symptoms of the disease. Nevertheless the Spotty affair is something of a blow to Germany's 7.3 million cat-owners, who have now been told that a bedtime cuddle with Felix, Gismo or Charlie - the country's three most popular cat names - might not be such a good idea. Yesterday, Germany's government told cat owners in affected areas to keep their pets indoors. At the same time, squads of health inspectors have been sent out - a bit like one of the darker fables from the Brothers Grimm - to round up all stray moggies. What fate awaits them is murkily unclear.
One final victim in the case of Spotty is Rügen. Virtually unknown in Britain, it has long been a popular destination for German holidaymakers, Romantic landscape painters, and East Europeans. Germany's Nazi and communist elite both flocked to dip a toe in the chilly Baltic. But with birds falling out of the sky, and the demise of Spotty, the resort can look forward to a lean summer.
