David Fowler, shown with one of his rescued cat pals, finds a calling in caring for feral cats.

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Some years ago, David Fowler saw a kitten thrown from a car into a busy intersection and witnessed its final desperate fight for life. He held it in a blanket as it gasped its last breath.

The experience led him to work with animals, and today he's one of the many volunteers of New Westminster's Maverick Cat Coalition, a registered charity that works to improve the lives of feral and abandoned cats throughout the Lower Mainland.

This is the story of one rescue.

By David Fowler
Special to the Province

It was winter. Looking out my dining room window, I noticed an orange cat walking through the snow bank.

His tail was curled in the air like a periscope. I seem to recall seeing this cat the previous year. Now watching him with interest, I realized he wasn't out for a stroll. He was hunting for food. Suddenly he stopped, motionless, an orange patch against the white snow. His head was down, listening. There was a slight, quivering, tension in his body, and then, springing through the air, he landed a few feet away, his head plunging into the snow. Only his curled tail was visible, like a curled branch. Seconds later he popped up, holding a wriggling field mouse in his jaws!

I decided to feed this solitary hunter. Each day before leaving for work, I left a bowl of dry food on a high ledge. He quickly noticed this new development. Once, while he was eating ravenously, I reached up and touched him. His short-haired coat felt like rough sandpaper. With startling speed, he wheeled around and struck me with his paw - glaring at me with sad, runny eyes.

I borrowed a trap from the Maverick Cat Coalition. One morning, he saw his bowl of food in this strange contraption. He looked at me, then at the trap, then back at me.

He glanced back at the snowbank. Finally, he walked slowly toward the trap, pausing briefly before walking in. Perhaps he thought "there's nothing more to lose." The trap snapped shut, and Abercrombie's new life was about to begin.

After a visit to the vet (antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection), I brought him home to a room of his own. At first, he preferred to sleep upright on the floor, like an Egyptian sphinx. Weeks later, he was relaxed enough to sleep stretched out on a couch. No predators in this house. Safe at last!

Today, Abercrombie lives very comfortably, He has a pleasant back yard and spends hours sleeping in a sunny bay window.

And in winter, he gazes out at the frozen landscape where he once struggled to survive.

Vancouver Province