‘THE BEST THING ABOUT WELLINGTON’: MITTENS THE CAT HAS PAWS ALL OVER NEW ZEALAND CAPITAL

Turkish Angora roams tattoo parlours, office towers and churches, posing for social media snapshots along the way

A feline that roams New Zealand’s capital city and is welcomed into tattoo parlours, hairdressers and office towers has become a social media star, with 30,000 followers who track his every movement online.

Mittens first came to attention in 2018 after repeatedly wandering inner-city dwellings, including the university, the post office, and a Catholic church. Mittens was also reportedly taken to the police station by concerned locals.

After repeated encounters with Mittens, an SPCA employee started a Facebook page to reassure locals that the cat wasn’t lost and didn’t need to be “rescued” – he was just adventurous.

The Facebook page now has 30,000 followers with locals tracking Mittens’ daily activities around town.

The page, The Wondrous Adventures of Mittens, also lists a series of rules for interacting with him, including “do not tell Mittens to go home”, “no speculating or asking where Mittens is”, and “no discussing Mittens being picked up”.

Mittens also has a Wikipedia page, where his occupation is listed as pet/local celebrity/media personality.

A selfie with Mittens has become a bucket-list item for many Wellingtonians. Owner Silvio Bruinsma says Mittens had similar venturesome habits when they lived together in Auckland but Wellington’s compact inner city has now made him much easier to track.

Mittens’ brother Latte, also a Turkish angora, does not share the intrepid streak and rarely ventures more than 20m from home, while Mittens can roam up to 2km.

“He has made Wellington his playground,” Bruinsma told the Dominion Post.

“I suppose my philosophy is, he doesn’t like being locked up and I don’t want to give him a life that is miserable.”

Although there was some initial concern for Mittens’ apparently aimless wanderings (no one feeds him but Bruinsma), locals and visitors now actively go looking for the cat and say he shows caution around roads – reportedly even stopping to wait at traffic lights.

In one close encounter, detailed in February on the Facebook page, Mittens got stuck in a $2 shop after falling asleep. A combined effort by Facebook members led to him being tracked to his last known location and the owners of the store were contacted to let him out after hours.

Sam Thacker, one of the administrators of the Facebook group and a staff member at the SPCA, has known Mittens for years and describes him as “street smart”.

“Please don’t pick him up and bring him into the SPCA,” Thacker posted.

“He has come in too many times with well-meaning people. All this means is that his owner has to come and collect him off us! We have had him in with us recently and he is perfectly healthy.”

According to pictures posted online in the last week, Mittens has visited a real estate agent, a Latino salsa bar, a community law centre and Victoria university.