Written by Jamie Traynor
Professional photography Phillip V. Photography
The young male tabby cat with both eyes clearly injured was roaming around a block of flats in Nigel, near Johannesburg. Living off scraps, he was in desperate need of veterinary attention. A wonderful lady named Magda Tagliaferri of Itamany Feral Project was alerted and quickly located him, setting to work on a plan to trap him so she could get him the care he needed.
But the problem came in after that: she couldn’t return him to live life as a feral cat with no way to see. So, she posted his story on Facebook and asked for a lifeline for this poor boy.
That’s when I saw his post and immediately reached out to her.
I have another blind cat at home as well as a feral cat, so I was more than happy to take on a cat who was both blind and feral. Magda kept me in the loop the whole way through. She managed to trap him and take him straight to her vet, where they confirmed that his eyesight was completely gone and the best option would be to remove both eyes to make him more comfortable. He was sterilised while he was at the vet clinic.
Magda decided to call him Andrea Bocelli, a name that stuck very quickly!
All this time we thought that Bocelli was living as a feral cat, but he showed Magda very quickly that he was actually very tame and all he wanted was lots of love and attention.
Fast forward to a few weeks later and Magda was on her way to Hoedspruit to personally drive Bocelli up to me.
Bocelli is the sweetest boy ever and loves to go on cat walks around the garden with the rest of the cat family. Blind cats and other animals adapt amazingly! It’s phenomenal how quickly they can adapt, and Bocelli is a true example of that.
