I couldn’t get 20 cats off my property — so I adopted them all

A British man has told how he accidentally ended up adopting a colony of 20 stray Spanish cats.

Sam Kinnear, 34, moved to the Spanish island of Mallorca last October with his wife’s cat, Bunny.

On the day of their arrival in the town of Pollensa, Sam found himself quickly responsible for more felines than he’d initially planned for.

Noticing two cats looking right “at home” in his back garden, Sam curiously followed their trail and stumbled upon 15 strays looking down at him from a wall.

He decided to feed them – but before he knew it, he was their “cat mum”, and after he helped Cat Protection Pollensa trap and neuter them, the cats were returned and are now officially part of the family.

Clothing brand manager Sam now has the cats waiting outside his front door for dinner at 5pm sharp every day, with the clowder resting on chairs and tables around his property.

He joked how a “mix up in the cat distribution system” – the jokey idea that when you’re ready, the universe will present a cat to you – means the 20 strays have now taken over his life.

Sam – who says looking after the cats can be a bit daunting at times – has given names to them all, including Clarence, Simon, Suki Lu, Buggy and twins Momo and Gyoza.

Sam, who runs a clothing brand with his wife, originally from London, said: “Day one they were already here.

“I saw cats – I wanted to feed the cats.

“I go out of my gate and they’re there and overtime they worked out where I live.

“They’re all so beautiful and have such lovely personalities.

“Everyone who comes to visit, they’re just blown away.

“It is a bit daunting because what happens if I ever want to leave here?!

“It’s fun and it’s not too big an issue with my cat but it does get a bit much at times – I’ll have to explore ways to get them cool off a little bit!”

For Sam, he attributes the cat colony he’s fallen into as an outcome of the Cat Distribution System (CDN) – a meme phrase coined on TikTok to describe cats entering people’s homes uninvited and inadvertently getting adopted in the process, reinforcing the idea that cats adopt humans, rather than the other way around.

While they’ve had Bunny for seven years, their other cat unfortunately died shortly before her first birthday after being hit by a car.

Sam said: “It broke my heart and it must have said an urgent SOS to the bigwigs at the CDN.

“People often talk of the shady and mysterious workings of the CDN and I think there must have been a glitch in their system when it zeroed in on me – I suppose I must have been vulnerable to its charms.

“I think the cats like it here as we’re surrounded by other properties and they almost exclusively have dogs so we’re like a little cat oasis and dog-free zone.”

Sam is keen to generate support for Cat Protection Pollensa, who helped him have the cats safely neutered.