Most Severna Park softball players simply wake up and catch the bus to school. Ryleigh Smith checks on her cats.
Unbeknownst to most people who drive through white, lacrosse-crazy suburbs, there exists a secret society of felines, nestled in seemingly innocuous places like elementary schools, trails, backyards and sidewalks.
Smith is a wild hunter by profession, the third in the maternal line. She volunteers with the goal of spaying and neutering feral colonies of kittens to prevent them from growing too large. Even during the busy spring season, the Falcons junior checks the traps morning and night — sometimes more — and feeds them once a week.
There’s nothing she likes to talk about more.
“Younger cats are more sociable and easier to housebreak,” Smith said. “My favorite is the one in Severna Park; he has one eye. He’s not the friendliest, but he’s shaggy and kind of cute-looking.
Their teammates and their coach hear about them constantly. Falcons softball coach Bailey Benedick reckons her favorite story is from last March, when her third baseman regaled her with details about each of his “cat clans” and how each must have a name to make it “more official”.
“I know they know I’m doing it,” Smith said, “but I don’t think they know how much.”
Erika Smith reckons her daughter was born a future veterinarian. Ryleigh watched the woman she considered her grandmother, Erika’s best friend’s mother, run a huge sanctuary for cats and dogs while raising exotic animals, horses, cattle, and, of course, feral cat colonies. She passed her knowledge on to Erika, Ryleigh said, who then passed it on to her.
“I was so interested in it. One of my earliest memories is when I was 4 years old and we walked around the city of Baltimore and Annapolis looking at the colonies and feeding them,” said Ryleigh Smith.
Erika Smith still remembers her 13-year-old daughter walking into her kindergarten classroom with a cat in her hands. Ryleigh couldn’t get a ride home from school, so the then-freshman walked the Baltimore-Annapolis trail to her mother’s school when she encountered a stray with bare hands.
“From then on, she was on a mission to capture them all,” Erika Smith said.
The junior currently has about 30 cats on her plate. The family still keeps a close eye on the colonies living in both cities, but the Jones Elementary clan – eight adults and countless kittens – belongs to the teenager. She collaborates with neighbors’ backyard colonies. Earning a driver’s license allowed Smith more independence in her work and she developed her own style.
“I prefer tuna as bait for them,” Smith said, “even though it smells horrible.”
Smith operates based on word of mouth — neighbors coming to her or her mother when they see a cat — and she feeds off complaints on Facebook. People even recruit her to capture raccoons and skunks that terrorize local chickens. Sometimes Smith checks his traps only to find a wayward rabbit hiding inside. She keeps a mental log of where everyone tends to hide, walking along the sides of the road with cans in one hand and a plate in the other.
As Smith advanced in his craft, curiosity led to more cats. Smith captures, neuters and releases those who are too wild to live indoors. She tries to tame some, adopt them, but one in particular was returned to her (it’s her trainer’s favorite). Smith keeps five alone at home (along with the three dogs, two chinchillas, a hedgehog, a hamster and eight chickens) in an adjoining room. She is working with her mother to build a shed at their house to house more people.
And, most importantly, she still invites her mother.
“I treasure the times we spend together,” said Erika Smith. “I’m happy that, at 17 years old, she still chooses me to accompany her on her adventures.”
