We met Winfried Scholz last week, who is perhaps better known as Freddy “El Gato.”
He’s an interesting character, who has been living on the island since 1994, when he arrived and booked into an apartment in Puerto del Carmen. Within a few days he realized that area wasn’t for him and he moved into a cave in Papagayo!
Freddie is a lawyer, who speaks several languages and who is in the process of writing a book about the island he cares passionately about, but he’s best known as the “Cat guy.”
His mission to help the feral cats that live in Playa Blanca, and to do that he has set up food stations at various parts of the resort where the cats can come for water, food and shelter from the sun. He also does his best to control the population with a program of castration and neutering. His work is largely self funded, supplemented with the odd donation and the sale of “Cat friend” necklaces. Occasionally locals and tourists leave bags of cat food at the stations, and these are gratefully accepted – cat food is expensive on the island!
He’s certainly controversial, talking openly about disagreements with various people in the area, one of which lead to him suffering a knife attack, and he’s not shy about laying the blame for some of the island’s problems firmly at the door of the politicians.
This controversial side is balanced by the work he does for the cats, and the fact that he thinks nothing of choosing a piece of open land, and cleaning and tidying it for several hours, to the benefit of everyone.
He’s planning to open a café in Playa Blanca soon, and some of the profits from that will go towards paying for the work he does with the cats. We’ll keep you posted on that.
Here’s a video he made showing his cat feeding stations:
You can connect with Freddy via his Facebook page: Freddy Lanzarote Cats