Costa Rica, November 2006 -- Estrella, the Margay

There was also a caged Margay. The cat had no name; the staff just called her "el tigre." One day they asked me to name her. The hotel dog was named Galileo, so I said "Estrella" ("star" in Spanish, and pronounced "ess-STRAY-zhuh" in Costa Rica). It stuck.

I heard several different stories as to why the cat was there and whether it was eventually going to be released or not. Maybe it was rescued by the hotel owner after a local farmer tried to shoot it for killing and eating his chickens. Maybe the hotel owner killed its mother for sport and then discovered there was a kitten. One hotel staffer said the cat was going to be released "soon" and another said it was always going to be kept in the cage and used as a tourist attraction. It had been there at least six months, and was habituated to humans, so it's unlikely it would survive if released, unfortunately.

When we first arrived, the cat was frightenly thin. It was existing solely on a diet of raw beef and was assumedly malnourished. With permission of the hotel staff, I began bringing it raw chicken wings, which the cat snarfed up like ... like ... well, like a starving animal.

Margays are small -- they weigh 6-11 pounds. They are nocturnal tree-dwellers that eat birds and rodents. They are equally comfortable upsidedown and rightside up. Upsidedown cats??? Costa Rica home page