Barbara Caliri is Wild About Cats, Especially Feral Ones She Helps

Known as the Cat Lady on her block near Helix Charter High School, Barbara Caliri boasts a lifelong passion for felines. Her first pet was a turtle, but she remembers rescuing her first kitten when she was 5.

“She was under a neighbor’s car crying in the rain,” Caliri said of little Mitzi. “I called, ‘Daddy, Daddy, come here!’ ”

A La Mesan for 31 years,* Caliri is still on the lookout for cats in distress.

The next time you happen upon a feral cat with the tip of its right ear slightly clipped, worry not. It’s not recovering from a fight. It’s just an indicator that the Feral Cat Coalition has already spayed or neutered it, Caliri says.

“[Ear-tipping is] is important so the animal doesn’t need to be retrapped,” said Caliri, a volunteer at the coalition for 19 years.

The donation-run organization operates free spay and neuter clinics and works to educate the public regarding wild cats in order to improve the quality of their homeless lives. The coalition also provides the  tools and tips to help people humanely trap a feral cat, which can then undergo the altering procedure—something Caliri helps to schedule.

Caliri now has several cats, four of which were feral. Little Boy, a chocolate brown long hair, is among them.

“He’s one of my older cats, although he’s kind of squirrely,” she said. “He lets us pet him, though he didn’t for years. Obviously, I wasn’t planning on keeping him—I didn’t give him a proper name!”

*Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Caliri was 31 years old.