Adventurous Turkish Cat Roams Around the City, Becomes Local Celebrity


Adventurous Turkish Cat

An adventurous Turkish cat that roams around the city of Wellington in New Zealand has become a local celebrity, with many locals actually helping track his movements around the city via social media.

Known as ‘Mittens’, the Turkish cat is quite adventurous and is known to roam around Wellington as if he owns the place! Through crowdsourcing, it was determined that he goes as far as 20km away from his home – something that his brother, Latte, would be horrified to even consider.

Latte is not even half as adventurous as Mittens. The farthest Latte has ever been away from home is about 20m. Meanwhile, Mittens goes as far as 20km! Whoa.

Silvio Bruinsma owns both Mittens and Latte. He said that even back where they previously lived in Auckland, Mittens was already such an adventurous cat. But the compact inner city in Wellington made it an ideal playground for this unique cat.

Back in 2018, Silvio received too many calls from the local animal shelter as people kept on reporting his ‘lost cat’. But Mittens is not lost. He just loves to explore the city! Eventually, the locals came to understand that Mittens isn’t lost after all. They no longer bring him to the animal shelter; although he still gets brought there by well-meaning tourists.

Someone eventually created The Wondrous Adventures of Mittens, a Facebook group dedicated for this adventurous Turkish cat. Aside from the usual group rules, there are also specific rules that apply only for Mittens.

Some of the group rules include:

  • No speculating or asking where Mittens is
  • No telling Mittens to go home
  • No comments about him possibly getting hurt
  • No discussion about Mittens’ health condition
  • No posting/selling about Mittens’ merchandise
  • Page is only for Mittens and Latte, no other cat photos allowed