The Tale of the CatRat in the IDF Base

Looking at my title, it looks like some sophisticated moralistic fantasy tale is coming… but this is actually really is just a simple story that really did happen to me aeons ago, back when I was an officer in active duty in the IDF.

Our base was situated in a nice green area of northern Tel Aviv. Nice and relaxed most of the time, I had my own office with three soldiers and one junior officer under my command.

One morning, one of the soldiers, a young Tel Aviv kid with a fashionable haircut, comes in and reports seeing a rat the size of a cat in the base. “Don’t be silly,” I said. “Go get some coffee andwake up your eyes.” He insisted, and I told him that I highly doubt we have any rats, and ones the size of a cat are pretty rate. Even if we had them around, it wasn’t likely that they’d be out an about in broad daylight.

The next day, the guy shows up, along with another soldier, both insisting that they’ve seen the “catrat”, and I just shrugged it off as a piece of base lore that some bored soldiers had come up with.

In the following days, more sightings have been reported and everyone was talking about the huge “catrat” living on base. Then one morning, my soldier boy comes in and announces that he noticed the catrat is wearing a collar.

“Ok, enough is enough,” I said. “A huge rat? maybe. The size of a cat? possibly. A huge rat wearing a collar?? no way.”

So, I finally accompanied the soldiers on a mission to find the giant collared rodent. We went to the area where most sightings have been and spent a while searching, and soon enough we found it.

It was large and wearing a strange looking collar, but it was neither a rat nor a cat. It was this animal:

Israelis may recognize the animal. Quite easy to do when seen in its natural habitat (in this picture, in Mt Carmel where we spotted this Mom and lil one on a rock). It’s a hyrax, known locally as “Shafan”. As it happens, its name (biblical in origin), was the inspiration for the word “Spain”. According to legend, Phoenician sailors circling Spain spotted rabbits on the rocks and mistook them for “Shafan”, naming the place after the animal.

Back to the story… I couldn’t blame the soldiers for not identifying the hyrax properly. Who would expect to see one in the middle of Tel Aviv? The poor thing was emaciated too, and obviously in a bad shape. The bulky collar meant it didn’t just wander into the city (not that it was ever an option – we were dozens of miles away from any hyrax habitat). So, I started making phone calls and sure enough, the Tel Aviv university zoological center (located a mile away from our base) had “lost” a hyrax from their collection.

I wish I could end this story with a happy ending. Alas, by the time they showed up to try and trap our catrat, it was beyond saving. It stays with me as a very exotic “almost-rescue” story and I will always regret not having gone to check on it much sooner.

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