Written by, and photographs supplied by Nina Wilson, Founder of Lanseria Ferals
Tucked just outside Johannesburg, Lanseria International Airport bustles with aircraft and travellers. But as the sun dips below the horizon and the hum of human activity quiets, another, quieter world stirs to life – one ruled by the elusive and resilient feral cat colonies that have made the airport grounds their home.
Ghostly shadows in the night
These colonies began to form around 2019, when the first signs of a growing feral presence became impossible to ignore. Over the years, through compassionate effort and community dedication, I set up six feeding stations which have been strategically placed around the airport, offering sustenance and a degree of stability to these wild feline residents. While weekly food top-ups are part of a consistent routine, the cats themselves remain mostly out of sight – ghostly shadows that rarely appear while humans are present.
To better understand their movements and keep track of the colony’s health, I took a step forward in October 2024 by purchasing a solar-powered trail camera. Rotating it weekly between the different feeding stations, I began to document the secret lives of Lanseria’s feral cats. This quiet surveillance has revealed surprising patterns, chief among them a clear nocturnal routine: almost all feline visitors arrive after sunset and disappear again by sunrise. On quieter weekends, when the airport’s hustle fades, some cats venture out during the day, providing vivid, full-colour glimpses on the trail cam footage.
Thanks to the camera’s crisp resolution, I can distinguish between sterilised cats – marked by the tell-tale “tipped ear” – and newcomers that have yet to be trapped and sterilised. And it was in mid-March 2025 that the camera recorded just such a newcomer.
During the week of March 12th, 2025, the trail camera captured repeated early morning visits from an unfamiliar cat. Reviewing the footage, I was able to clearly identify a ginger male without a tipped ear, frequenting the feeder between 6:45 and 8:45 AM. With the sun already up during his visits, the camera recorded his comings and goings in bright detail – revealing, quite unmistakably, that he’s still unneutered.
The arrival of this new male highlights the ongoing need for vigilant monitoring and humane intervention. Every unsterilised cat is a reminder that our work is never finished; each one a potential contributor to the cycle of overpopulation. Thanks to technology and a growing network of caring individuals, however, these ferals have allies committed to their well-being and control.
Lanseria’s feral cats remain mostly unseen by the public eye, but behind the scenes, their stories continue to unfold – quiet, tenacious, and, thanks to a simple solar-powered lens, no longer entirely hidden.
A waiting game: one ginger male and the challenge of trust
On the evening of the 24th of March, I took a step that all feral caretakers know well: I set a humane trap at the feeder station, hoping to catch the newly identified ginger male for sterilisation. With the support of the airport’s security guards, who kindly agreed to keep watch overnight, the trap remained in place until morning. But like many clever ferals before him, this one proved elusive. No cat was trapped that night.
Undeterred, I repositioned the trail camera to monitor the area once more. Reviewing the footage over the next week, I noticed a curious change: the ginger male had shifted his feeding routine dramatically. Instead of early mornings, he was now appearing between 9:30 and 11:30 AM – a highly unusual timeframe for a feral cat, who typically avoids daytime exposure.
Suspecting this might be a sign of growing boldness – or perhaps growing hunger – I decided to try again.
On Monday, the 31st of March, I reset the trap and left it for two consecutive nights. Still no success.
Then came Wednesday, the 2nd of April.
After a long day at work, I prepared to collect the empty trap and pack it away once again. But, just one row away from the feeding station, under the shade of a parked car, I spotted him – our elusive ginger tom, sound asleep. Quiet and unbothered, I softly called out, and to my surprise, he stirred and showed interest, watching me as I walked closer.
I quickly placed fresh food inside the trap, hoping curiosity or hunger would guide him in. He came forward, sniffed the air near the entrance... but stopped short. No dice. He simply wasn’t ready.
Instead, he turned and began to walk away, pausing to look back, meowing softly as if acknowledging my presence. I followed at a respectful distance, camera in hand, snapping a few photos. Then, with a final glance, he leapt gracefully over the wall, vanishing into the grounds of the motel next door.
This unexpected interaction, brief as it was, offered a powerful reminder of the delicate balance between trust and distance in feral cat care. While many of these cats remain wary of human contact for good reason, some, like this ginger male, seem to hover at the edge of familiarity, curious but cautious, present yet untouchable.
For now, his journey continued. But thanks to watchful eyes, a patient heart, and the quiet click of a solar trail camera, his story – and the stories of all Lanseria’s ferals – will not go unseen.
The search narrows: a name, a past, and a glimmer of hope
April in Gauteng brought relentless rain. Days of grey skies and damp ground that made trail monitoring difficult and cat sightings even rarer. Still thinking of the ginger male, I paid a visit to the motel, where he’d last been seen. I approached the reception and asked the staff if they’d noticed a ginger cat around the property, or perhaps even been feeding one.
To my surprise, the answer was yes. On a few occasions he begged for food from guests at the café, but nobody was feeding him.
A few guests had seen the cat that very day and, without hesitation, pointed me in his direction. I followed their lead and called out gently, and there he was, emerging from behind a sleeper container, meowing back in response. That meow was telling. It had a familiarity to it, a note of comfort that suggested he’d once belonged to someone. He wasn’t completely feral; he was a cat with a past.
I quickly set up a trap nearby. To my astonishment, he walked right into it… but he was far too clever. He sniffed around, stepped inside, and neatly avoided triggering the pressure plate that would close the door. He knew exactly how to skirt the trap’s design.
Hopeful that he might appear again, I left traps with the motel staff and showed them how to use them safely if he returned. But days passed with no sightings. Then, on the afternoon of the 17th of April, I stopped by after work – and there he was again, curled under one of the sleeper containers, watching me cautiously. I brought him wet food, which he devoured ravenously, reinforcing my belief that he hadn’t been getting fed regularly.
Unfortunately, with a long weekend approaching and no vets available for sterilisation or post-op care, setting a trap wasn’t advisable. So I waited. Again.
On Saturday, the 19th of April, I decided to post the trail cam images and the more recent close-up phone shots to my Lanseria Ferals Facebook page. Maybe, just maybe, someone out there was missing him.
Then the message came.
Marisa reached out almost immediately. She’d seen the post and believed the cat might be hers – Squish, a ginger male who’d gone missing from Monaghan Farm back in September 2024. He’d slipped away before she could have him sterilised or microchipped. She sent me photos, and I felt a wave of recognition.
The markings, the posture, the eyes – it had to be the same cat.
The very next day, Marisa met me at the Sleepover Motel, filled with hope that she’d be reunited with Squish. We spent nearly two hours combing the grounds, checking behind sleeper containers, peering under vehicles, and softly calling out his name. But the elusive ginger cat, possibly Squish, was nowhere to be seen. The trail had gone quiet once again.
Yet, despite the disappointment, this was no longer a nameless feral without a story. He had a name. A history. A person who still missed him. And that made all the difference.
The moment of truth: a trap, a doubt, and a glimmer of recognition
By Tuesday, the 22nd of April, I knew I was running out of chances. Squish – if it was truly him – was still roaming the grounds of the Sleepover Motel, clever, cautious, and increasingly erratic in his appearances. But during my lunch break, with a sliver of time and hope, I drove over for another look.
And... there he was.
Curled in a patch of sunlight among the bushes, the ginger male was napping, seemingly at peace for the moment.
I moved quickly but quietly. This time, I’d come prepared with a drop trap – a more manual but often more effective method than the traditional pressure-plate traps. I set it up nearby and waited patiently, heart racing. Within 30 minutes, I had him!
Caught safely beneath the drop trap, the ginger tom hissed and flailed, frightened and defensive. I contacted Marisa immediately. This could be the moment we’d all been waiting for.
Marisa arrived shortly after, eyes searching, heart hopeful. But when she saw the cat, her expression changed. Her excitement turned to hesitation. The cat was terrified – wild-eyed, growling, clearly unaccustomed to the sudden confinement.
Marisa frowned. “It looks like him, but I’m not sure.” Her uncertainty hung in the air like a fog. “I remember his tail to be longer.”
I reminded Marisa that many once-domesticated cats revert quickly when left to fend for themselves, especially after months alone in a noisy, unfamiliar place. And she herself recalled how much Squish hated being in a cat carrier. Perhaps this wasn’t fear of us, but a memory of confinement that had always triggered his defences.
Still, doubt lingered.
Whether he was Squish or not, one thing was certain: this cat needed help. He was unsterilised, un-chipped, and living in an area where food was scarce and danger was constant. Regardless of his past, he deserved a safe future.
Home at last: a name confirmed and a new beginning for Squish
With the ginger tom safely trapped, the next steps were swift and necessary. Our top priority was to ensure his health and future. We rushed him to the vet for a full medical work-up: he was tested for common feline diseases, sterilised, vaccinated, and microchipped. I also made the decision with Marisa’s approval to have his ear tipped – a visible sign of his sterilisation should he ever find himself lost again. By the end of the day, the vet gave him a clean bill of health, and he was ready to be discharged.
At the end of a long day Marisa collected Squish from the vet and had decided she’d take him home to her parents’ place. There, a warm room awaited him – a quiet space where he could decompress, rest, and begin the slow journey back to trust. She drove him carefully, the cat carrier silent for most of the ride. And then, just as the doubt lingered one last time, she looked back at him... and saw the truth.
In an emotional voice note that I’ll never forget, Marisa said, “I looked into his eyes, and he slowly blinked at me… and that’s when I knew – it’s him. It’s my Squish. He’s finally safe.”
It was the blink that sealed it – the soft, feline gesture of recognition and peace. The cat who’d vanished into the wild eight months earlier had found his way back home.
But recovery would take time.
For weeks, Squish remained skittish, a creature suspended between his former life and the one he’d survived on his own. He mostly hid beneath the bed, coming out only when the room was quiet. Yet during those still moments, he’d perch on the windowsill, soaking up the sunlight and gazing out at the garden. It was his way of reconnecting with comfort, warmth, and safety.
On the other side of the door, a familiar figure waited. Cleo, his best friend from before his disappearance, now sat patiently, ears alert, tail gently swishing, often trying to sneak a bite of Squish’s food. Whether she remembered him, or simply sensed that this feline was once part of her world, she lingered near, hoping for a reunion.
Squish, still unsure, kept his distance. But he watched her.
On the 16th of May, I visited Squish in his new home. He’s still nervous around people and spends most of his time under the bed, but he’s slowly learning to enjoy indoor life and trust again. He may even hold a small grudge against me, the one who finally trapped him. But that’s okay. His safety and comfort matter more than forgiveness.
The healing process had begun, not just physically, but emotionally. The journey from feral to found is rarely easy, but Squish had love waiting for him on the other side. He’d survived against the odds and returned to the only place he’d ever known as home. Squish’s journey from feral survivor to found companion was complete. Though healing takes time, he’d returned home – proof that even in the shadows, love and patience can bring a cat back from the wild.
Our Squishy Tale, as shared by Marisa Younge
This tale, as most are, is one of love and loss, of hope and despair, and of beginnings and endings. It actually begins with a Squash, a wild cat my foster daughter Noelle found in the bushes of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and carried home squashed in her bag. He unfortunately had some underlying health issues and passed on to his next life. Our hearts were sore, especially my Noelle’s, but one day on her walk to the corner cafe here in Randburg she did what she does best, and found a cat in a gutter. And here begins the tale of our Squish... quite dirty, but friendly as ever, Squish quickly meowed his way into our hearts!
He had a ferocious appetite for food, play and relaxation. The more he grew, the more we noticed his extraordinarily long tail and, true to his gingerness, his love for roaming and exploring outside of our gate. We live on a main road, and with Noelle’s journey having taken her back to KZN, I decided it would be best to move Squish to my parents-in-laws’ estate, Monaghan Farm, in Lanseria.
There he’d have ample space to explore safely without the risk of fast cars. In Monaghan there’s a very impressive electric fence and speed limit of 40km that’s punishable by a hefty fine!
Now, when Squish was being homed there, he did what gingers apparently do best, and escaped the day before he was due to go to the vet to get fixed. At first he didn’t run away, but I feel after meeting the existing black boss cat of the house there and exchanging a few words, he scurried off into the long Highveld grass.
In that moment I didn’t think that it would be the last time I saw him, but also that he’d only be found a whole eight months later. We searched and searched for him, online and in person; he was seen down the road at two different houses but vanished again.
He endured the bitterly cold winter nights and the heatwave of 2024, and most certainly lots more in the wilds of Monaghan. We hoped and lost hope, feared and found faith: maybe he’d found a home with one of the many lovely families at Monaghan – who surely could resist his handsome and friendly heart?
A dear sweet lady from the neighbouring estate had been helping me search for him and one fine day shared Nina’s post. A new visitor at her feeding station by the airport had been caught on camera and my heart did a flip – could this actually be our Squish!?
Here’s where Nina takes over with her story, but what a magical feeling it was to drive to the Motel the day she called me to say she’d managed to finally trap him. Yes, it’s taken us a while to catch glimpses of our Squish in this much larger and partly feral man-cat, but he’s peeking through for sure. It’s amazing to see how he had to change and adapt in order to survive.
His precious little soul, as all pets do, has brought me lessons. Home is where the heart is – even though I thought he may have found another wonderful home, for him the grass wasn’t greener on the other side. He’d found a place in our hearts and that’s where he wanted to stay.
Cats seem to whisper to us with their free spirits, “Hold us with an open hand, we travel with the winds and one knows not when they may blow.”
There are seasons in life, times of togetherness and times of solitude, but despair not, for in truth there’s no separation from the ones we hold dear. A few of my other cats have left me in the past, just up and went all of a sudden, one unsuspecting day. How my heart longs for them and wonders how they are, but I always feel their soft purrs saying, “Onwards we must go, Mom... you have to share us.”
Without the care and love of Gail Roberts and Nina from Lanseria Ferals, our Squish tale may be very different. If his tale has touched your heart, please consider donating time or money to Lanseria Ferals to help make it possible for Nina to continue this amazing work she performs.
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