National Black Cat Day is celebrated on Oct. 27 and raises awareness about low adoption rates for black cats and why superstitions surrounding them can be harmful. Around Halloween, black cats are often mistreated and abused due to the popular yet false belief that they bring bad luck.
“I don’t think [most people] realize how mainstream it is to hurt animals and to hurt cats. So many people do it, it’s absolutely baffling,” senior Alyssa Bowman, who has taken care of over 32 pet cats, said. “Cats are not going to give you bad luck…They’re innocent animals, and you shouldn’t hurt animals, period.”
For the majority of the year, shelters will be filled with black cats who go unadopted due to their stigma. However, throughout October, this trend seems to be reversed.
“Black cats during the Halloween season…get an influx of adoption applications because people are looking for spooky kittens or Halloween gifts, which is not the way you should be looking at creatures. Usually, those black kittens that get adopted during the Halloween season will get returned after Halloween,” junior Lorelei Patronis, who fosters kittens, said. “They get treated more like objects…There’s a sort of romanticization of black cats that makes it kind of dangerous to have black cats on the adoption market throughout Halloween time.”
Oftentimes, black cats will arrive at shelters injured and unhealthy, since people will not go out of their way to help a stray black kitten on the road if they see one.
“I had a black kitten come into the Humane Society a little while ago. His name was Midnight. He was hit by a car, and they had sort of left him, like nobody had paid attention to him on the side of the road,” Patronis said. “He had to have one of his back legs amputated, which was rough…I think we’ve been getting better over time, but we definitely need to rethink how we’re treating these kinds of cats.”
Because black cats are being left out in the wild unfixed at such a high rate, it means more and more black cats are reproducing, exponentially increasing the number of unhoused black cats and repeating the cycle.
“The best way to prevent the unfair treatment of cats is to prevent them [from being vulnerable] in the first place…We only have more black kittens roaming the streets because people aren’t getting their cats spayed and neutered. Then there’s more kittens that will end up like Midnight, hurting on the side of the road with an amputated leg,” Patronis said. “If you want to solve the unfair treatment of black cats, get your pets spayed and neutered.”
Many first-time cat owners or well-meaning members of the community are unaware of the violence and mistreatment black cats face during Halloween. As a result, nothing is done to protect these cats before it is too late.
“If you have a cat that’s black or even a stray cat you might be feeding that’s that color, take it inside. Make sure you know where it is at all times,” Bowman said. “Even if you aren’t a cat owner, you could get into contact with FSU’s Campus Cats club or other communities that help with spay and neutering…There’s multitudes of things you can do. If you just do a small thing, it could help them stay alive for longer and help abate this unfair treatment, this double standard.”
As it stands, National Black Cat Day is still a fairly obscure holiday. However, with enough communal effort, these myths can be dispelled and our dark feline companions can be shielded from further harm.
“The way that black cats have been treated and their adoption rates when it’s not Halloween have gotten a lot better over the past few years. I think that is largely in part due to having a National Black Cat Day,” Patronis said. “It really brings light to the fact that these cats are literally just like any other cat, just a different color.”
