On the streets of Cairo, saving the gods' cats

Finding new homes
Lauris was helped in her mission by family circumstances. Soon after her first visit, her husband got a job in nearby Saudi Arabia and they relocated from Canada to Egypt, buying a building in Cairo with enough room downstairs for a cat shelter. 

"Things just miraculously fell into place,” she said in what is now the lobby of the Egyptian Mau Rescue Organization. "This is just one year after I saw the cats on the street." Now three rooms house about 25 cats, grouped by age.

In the first room are restless adolescents playing with makeshift toys; in the second, adult cats fuss and purr; and in the last room, single kittens roam freely or nursing kittens are kept in cages with their mothers.

Although the cats are not pedigreed, Lauris already has helped place 16 in Canada, Germany, the U.S. and Cairo. Seven more are awaiting trips to new homes abroad. Lauris is also helping other Cairo cat shelters find homes for their Maus by listing their cats or referring potential clients to their Internet sites. 

Prospective owners have to pay the cost of preparing cats for shipping (required vaccinations, blood-tests, paperwork, etc.) and shipping charges, but EMRO is not hearing complaints about the fees. For instance, Ann Van Den Bossche, a market researcher who has adopted a handsome pair of Maus and is trying to get a third for her mother, says that pedigreed Maus cost up to $6,000 in her native Belgium.

"They are extremely intelligent and they know what they want and are extremely affectionate toward the person they have a relationship with," explained Van Den Bossche.

Another client, Carol Ann Green, toured Cairo with pocketfuls of pet food, hoping to lure a Mau off the streets to bring back to her home in Texas. After several failed attempts and dubious looks from passersby, Green found EMRO on the Internet, called Lauris and was directed to a nearby animal shelter. 

"I called ahead of time and they came out with little Moza," said Green, who believes that Maus are more active and intelligent than other cats. "They always have the look like "Oh-oh, I'm in trouble!" she added. 

Green is looking forward to another adoption. "I'm not interested in high fancy bloodlines." she said. "It's nicer to have a cat closer to its roots, even if it's not registered." 

Professional breeding in the works
Native Egyptian Maus, though, may soon enter the ranks of the elite breeding world. Audrey Law, a Canadian breeder who has purchased two Maus from EMRO, has succeeded in getting them registered officially.

It will take at least four years (or five generations of cats) before the kittens can make their debut as pedigreed Maus. Law is happy to wait — she believes the introduction of a new gene pool will make for healthier cats, because inbreeding has led to an increase in defects such as cataracts, heart problems and lower immunity. Most pedigreed Maus, in fact, can trace their origins back to three cats brought to the U.S. in 1956 by an exiled Russian princess.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of California, using DNA from an ancient cat mummy, will soon definitively determine the lineage between pharoah-era Egyptian domestic cats and today's Maus, both native and pedigreed.

“If we can prove that these are the cats and [they are] truly related to the ones in Egypt [it] will be amazing," said Law.  

An indisputable genetic link between Pharaonic house cats and today's Egyptian street cats would be welcome news for Lauris. She has already purchased land in Saqara, near the Pyramids, for a larger facility where she would like to provide a home for wild Egyptian Maus that aren't candidates for adoption.

She also hopes it could be a draw for tourists seeking a living link to Egypt's storied history. 

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