Cats are an integral part of the community of old San Juan. This beautiful young kitty welcomed us at the red gate to the old town.
A gentle reminder of how we do things: 🐱🐶🐦
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Samanthab has taken the day off to let me post this timely photo diary.
The red gate, the only entry to the walled city of old San Juan.
Our family stumbled down the hill from the San Juan cathedral, in search of one of San Juan’s old forts, towards what looked like a portal to another dimension. As soon as we passed through the tunnel of massive boulders, turned and looked at the bold red gate, we were greeted by a beautiful cat with enchanted golden eyes. We had seen many cats in the old town, where they have been a part of the community for a very long time, but this one was especially beautiful and confident (top photo). Welcome to the Enchanted Isle (s)he seemed to say.
As we looked for a path towards the old fort we saw more healthy confident kitties in perfect locations for their coat colors, blending in with the environment.
Cat near old San Juan’s Red Gate
Beneath the massive walls of the old town a walking path had been built in recent decades for people to walk to the old fort.
Walls of old San Juan with guardian
The waters were calm on the bay and the skies were blue as we walked up the path to the old fort but rainclouds were forming on the horizon.
Entrance to old San Juan's harbor with greeter.
As we walked to the old fort the skies got darker. We spotted an iguana on the city wall but saw no more cats. We scrambled up the steps to the old fort then the rain began to fall. It was a portent of things to come.
We were planning a weeks stay on the northeast coast where we could visit the rain forest while staying near the beach. We planned to paddle the bio-luminescent bay in the calm evening waters. However, tropical storm Ernesto came through the gap between Puerto Rico and Culebra and winds were funneled by the mountains into our location. The power went out, then the water went out. The next morning we saw that tree limbs were down everywhere and power lines were down. We left our supplies with the very helpful neighbors that had lived through Maria without water and power for months and decided to head back to old San Juan, which had not been impacted by the storm.
The people of Puerto Rico were incredibly kind and gracious. They gave rides and food to a young couple that were stranded because they used Uber to get to their vacation rental but had to leave it because of the conditions. Even the restaurants in gated communities for rich snowbirds were closed. We found a local pizza parlor with backup generator power to feed the family. It was good.
La Perla, outside the gates of old San Juan, is beautiful but some buildings have not recovered from hurricane Maria and lack roofs.
We headed back to old San Juan were the power was intermittent but where hotels, shops and restaurants had generators. The storm had done no damage there, but the hum of generators filled the air. People were loving life despite the heat, humidity and high cost of living by being kind to each other and the creatures around them, especially the community cats. Shops, stores and even luxury hotels had their resident felines. The relationship between the people and the community cats may be as old as the old town itself, because cats protected the grain stores of cargo ships.
Old San Juan community cat.
However, we found that there is trouble in paradise. We discovered while talking to a shop owner that the beautiful cats around the old Red Gate had been put under an impending death sentence by zealous National Park Service overseers from the mainland who disliked cats. This was despite a long standing effort by the organization Save a Gato to spay, neuter and find homes for cats to maintain a healthy and stable cat population in the old town and it’s gate. There are natural environments where cats have no place, but old San Juan and its gate is an urban environment where cats, humans and wildlife have coexisted for generations. The path built by the NPS is a recent addition to that urban environment. People who live in small apartments in old San Juan have been feeding those cats for generations.
Save a Gato poster, old San Juan Puerto Rico
The New York times wrote an excellent piece on the shared predicament of the people and cats of old San Juan. Laws and rules favoring investors over residents are driving local people out of San Juan. Homes are being converted into vacation rentals. People are being forced to abandon their cats in old San Juan as they seek housing they can afford. Some of these cats move from the old town into the NPS controlled area. All efforts by the NPS to remove cats will be followed by more cats moving into the area of the removed cats. The efforts by Save a Gato to find homes for cats and to keep the population stable is the most effective and humane way to deal with the situation until laws and policies are changed to keep local residents in their homes in old San Juan.
Save a Gato, old San Juan, is doing an excellent job of keeping the community cats healthy, finding them homes and maintaining a stable population
Part of the problem is that people keep dropping off more cats. “In Puerto Rico, there are so many abandoned animals,” Ms. Podestá said. “It’s a never-ending story.”
The number of abandoned animals on the island surged after Hurricane Maria in 2017, when many Puerto Ricans lost their homes. Amid natural disasters and economic uncertainty, Puerto Rico’s population shrank by about 12 percent from 2010 to 2020; the island now has about 3.2 million people, many of whom have struggled to keep up the rising cost of housing in particular.
As she walked, Ms. Podestá rattled off the names of friends who used to live in Old San Juan until their rents doubled or tripled and pushed them out.
“I am one of those who always worries that she will get displaced,” she said.
Many of Old San Juan’s brightly painted colonial-era houses, with their tall ceilings and airy courtyards, were once home to artists and craftspeople who gave the place a bohemian feel. Families lived there, too, many over generations. Now, homes have increasingly been turned into vacation rentals. Building after building is lined with the telltale sign of short-term occupancy: combination master locks used to store keys.
Thanks to a lawsuit by the community cat defenders Alley Cat Allies the NPS plan to kill cats that stray from old San Juan into the area outside of the Red Gate have been put on hold.
San Juan’s community cats can sleep easy for now.
Alley Cat Allies has achieved a major victory to protect community cats living on the San Juan National Historic Site in Puerto Rico. Alley Cat Allies legal efforts and refusal to back down have forced the United States National Park Service (NPS) to agree to halt movement on its cruel plan to remove and kill cats on the historic site starting October 1.
“This victory is a crucial step, and Alley Cat Allies stopped the NPS’ reckless and cruel intention to begin removing and killing these cats on October 1. However, the cats’ lives remain at risk unless the plan is struck down permanently,” said Yonaton Aronoff, a lawyer representing Alley Cat Allies. “Alley Cat Allies will not back down until that happens, for the sake of the cats and the many Puerto Rico residents and advocates worldwide who have spoken out to defend them.”
Alley Cat Allies’ historic lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia claims the NPS’ plan to remove the cats violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In August, Alley Cat Allies filed for an injunction against the NPS to stop its imminent action starting October 1. Ultimately, the NPS agreed to Alley Cat Allies’ terms, which include ceasing steps toward the removal of the cats until the court decides the legality of the NPS’ plan.
Puerto Rico is an island paradise, but there are many beautiful islands in the Caribbean to visit. We keep on returning to Puerto Rico because of the warmth of the people. They deserve our support in times of need. They have yet to recover from hurricane Maria because the support they needed was delayed and denied by the former administration. Corrupt deals were made by the corrupt former administration to restore the power grid but as of late August when we visited it was still in disrepair. We need new and better plans to update and restore Puerto Rico’s grid. Kamala Harris has them. The former guy just has insults, corruption and more of the same policies that have been destroying the community of Old San Juan and it’s cats. Again, from the very long Times piece:
Mr. Segurola, a retired lawyer and teacher, sold his home in another San Juan neighborhood in 2015 to move to Old San Juan, which he had always loved because it was so charming and close knit. “Now, that sense of community is falling apart,” he said. “It’s the complete opposite of what one looked for and had in Old San Juan.”
He and others blame, at least in part, a tax law passed in Puerto Rico in 2012, when the island faced an economic collapse. The law, now known as Act 60, offers a break on long-term capital gains, dividends, interest and other taxes for investors who buy a home in Puerto Rico if they have not been a resident for at least 10 years prior.
Gov. Pedro R. Pierluisi, who was defeated in a primary election this week, has stood by the law, calling it an important way for Puerto Rico to attract outside investors.
Destroyed building in downtown old San Juan, overtaken by vegetation
We need to put people and community first. The parts of Puerto Rico that are gated off to protect investors properties that are empty much of the year have become soulless blights on the island. There are already thousands upon thousands of vacation properties that lie empty much of the year while the people of Puerto Rico cannot pay the rent or afford to buy a home. This blight cannot be allowed to spread further or it will destroy what makes Puerto Rico special, its people and community. And its community cats.