A Cat's Long, Strange Trip Across the Pacific

Ono Fainga'a was born in May 2015 in a feral cat colony in the Fanga 'o Pilolevu district of Nuku'alofa, the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific. Ono is the number six in the Tongan language, as she was the sixth cat to be associated with the Fainga'a family of Longolongo.

Ono Fainga'a

Her close relative Nima (number five) had been removed from the same colony and given to the Fainga'a home in the Longolongo district of Nuku'alofa, and in July 2015 I removed Ono from the colony with the intention of reuniting her with Nima in Longolongo; however, she ended up staying in the Tongilalva house in Fanga with two other cats and four dogs.

The Tongilava Pack: Denzel, Jadzia, Roxanne, and Bette

Ono, Haisheng, and Dylan

All of these cats and dogs were flown to San Francisco on 1 February 2018, but three days later Ono escaped from her new residence in Sausalito. Weeks went by, and people assumed that a coyote had caught her. Then on 23 April there was a pile of feathers on the front doorstep. Could it be a message from Ono? She was known to be an excellent bird hunter in Tonga, and since dogs breed out of control and roam freely there, Ono had learned to avoid them, so it was possible that she had evaded the coyotes of Marin for three months. On 6 May a neighbor across the street reported that one of her security cameras had imaged a cat matching her description during the night: a gray cat with a white-tipped tail.

 

The Cat Owns the Night

The quest to bring Ono home began. On 8 May Marin Friends of Ferals provided a humane trap and a motion-activated camera. The camera imaged her near the trap on 11 May and on several nights thereafter, but then raccoons began visiting the trap, and within a few days a raccoon was caught in it. In the early morning hours of 18 May Ono ventured halfway into the trap for the first time. A raccoon was caught again that night.

Rocky Raccoon

Ono returned to the trap about an hour after nightfall on 20 May. The food was now positioned deep inside it, but not past the trigger plate. She sniffed around for awhile and left. Finally, a little while after 01:00 hours on 21 May she went all of the way into trap for the first time. She entered the trap three more times during the next four hours. It was now time to position the food where Ono would spring the trap. Just has she had done the night before, Ono came to the trap a little more than an hour after full darkness and was promptly trapped at 22:03 hours. After 106 days of enjoying the night life of Hurricane Gulch, Ono Fainga'a was home.

Ono Grounded After Being Out Way Past Curfew