Sneaky stray cat struts into this Tacoma landmark and makes itself right at home

Who doesn’t, on a cold Tacoma day, want to say, screw it, I’m moving to Hawaii. Cats might, too, if they could figure out how to buy an airline ticket.

One Tacoma cat has almost done that.

A black and white house cat moved into W.W. Seymour Conservatory on Monday and staff there aren’t sure how to get it out.

Or even if they want to.

The Victorian greenhouse at Wright Park was closed Monday, but the doors were left open for a few minutes while new poinsettias were delivered. Metro Parks Tacoma grew 2,600 of the plants this year, according to horticultural specialist Joseph Gabbamonte.

Monday is also when Gabbamonte first noticed something amiss in the otherwise quiet conservatory,

“I was watering in the dome area and it startled me at first, because we were closed,” he said of a sudden movement of foliage. “I just thought, oh, someone’s in here and then I saw the cat actually run by. And then it took me a good hour and a half to find it.”

The cat was clearly not into making human friends and still isn’t. Most visitors didn’t even see it on Thursday, the first day the 1908 greenhouse was opened since Sunday. Gabbamonte thinks the feline is getting a little less nervous around people but it still spends most of its day watching visitors from behind tropical leaves.

The staff have been setting out water and food for it.

Black and white

While the open door theory is leading the speculation of how the cat entered the building, Gabbamonte isn’t totally convinced.

“What’s really strange is two people the day before both said, you guys really need a cat in here,” he said. “And another lady came in, you guys should really get a cat.”

The black and white cat has a distinctive toothbrush mustache, making it look like a feline Charlie Chaplin. A darker mind might liken it to Adolf Hitler. Gabbamonte suggests a likeness to Marilyn Monroe. For her beauty mark, he explained.

The cat likes to explore the space, he said, but mostly it hides in the foliage. And the foliage, from banana trees to orchids, is thick. It’s easy to see why people get pounced on by hungry tigers in a real jungle.

Lost and found

Seymour staff have been looking for missing cat posters in the area and scouring the internet. But, so far, no one has reported a missing mustached cat.

Gabbamonte realizes anyone could come in and claim the cat was theirs but the shy cat will have, presumably, the final say in that reunion.

Until then, the cat is staying put.

“I wouldn’t mind having a cat here,” he said. “I think a lot of people would enjoy it.”

So would the cat, apparently. “It’s usually pretty warm in here, places in the sun,” Gabbamonte said.

Several visitors to the conservatory Thursday agreed with Gabbamonte.

“We’re 100 percent pro cat, no matter where you are,” said Shelly Sherwood of Tacoma.

“Some people will say, I’m allergic, but if you don’t tell them, they won’t even know,” said her friend, Heidi Asplund of Burien.

Jungle dangers

It’s not all a bed of roses inside Seymour for the cat. Poison dart frogs watch from inside a secure vivarium. But even if they did escape, the frogs wouldn’t be a danger to the urban jungle cat because they don’t eat the native flora that make them toxic.

The conservatory’s fish pond could give the feline an unanticipated dunk but cats are known for their four-legged deftness. Any fishing expedition would probably end in a stand-off. The koi are as big as the cat.

Some visitors voiced a concern for the cat living in an environment with potentially toxic plants. But there’s not much to worry about, Gabbamonte said. The most dangerous plants to cats — lilies — aren’t grown in Seymour. And cats aren’t dumb. They know which plants to avoid.

“I have a cat and I have 200 house plants,” he said.

If the cat ends up staying, it won’t be the greenhouse’s first. At least two cats lived there for several years in the past few decades. The most recent was eventually adopted by a Metro Parks employee when the conservatory underwent a renovation in 2003, according to manager Tyra Shenaurlt.

Seymour allows both cat and dog visitors, she said. She’s open to having a resident cat although she harbors one fear.

“This cat might have found its way in to have babies in the conservatory,” she said. “When we had juncos take up residency every year for four years, it caused us so much anxiety, especially when the little suckers started fledging.”