The Cat with the Most Beautiful Eyes on Mykonos

This cat’s unusual, arresting green and blue eyes have become the newest attraction on the glittering Greek island of Mykonos, according to a report on Mykonos Live TV.

The white feline beauty, who is often seen strolling the narrow cobblestone streets of the cosmopolitan island, transfixes locals and visitors with her majestic stare.

Having two different-colored eyes, a condition called heterochromia, occurs infrequently in humans but is less rare amongst domesticated animals such as dogs and cats. Often, cats with heterochromia have either completely white or mostly white fur, and one blue eye.

The condition is caused by a concentration of melanin, or the pigment that gives color to the eyes, hair, and skin, in one eye, and a lack of the substance in the other.

Plight of stray cats on Mykonos and other Greek islands

The nation of Greece, and the Greek islands in particular, have long been inhabited with stray, abandoned, and feral cats.

Cats can be seen all across the Greek isles, but are most commonly spotted lounging around fishing boats down at the local port, hoping to secure a nice seafood meal.

These feline are favorite figures of tourists, who fall in love with the four-footed island residents and take countless pictures of the cats.

Although they are often sweet and loving, stray cats on Greek islands such as Mykonos have a very difficult life full of hardship and hunger.

The majority of these stray cats are born in the spring and they only survive through the kindness of tourists and summertime-residents who feed them during their summer stays or by receiving some fish from local fishermen.

At the end of the summer season the tourists and those with summer homes leave, and some cats are somehow able to survive through the kindness of local Greek people. Some, however, do not survive.

The Greek Cat Welfare Society has been promoting the welfare of felines in Greece since 1992. The group’s main strategy is to support the neutering of colonies of stray cats to reduce their numbers over the long run.

“Trap, neuter and return,” a policy also called TNR, is now recognized to be the only humane and effective long-term method of reducing the stray cat population, which has long been one of the saddest aspects of life in the Greek islands.

Often, island residents, activists, and even tourists will take stray cats to the local veterinarian to have them neutered so that they can’t continue to reproduce.

Giving birth is extremely painful and exhausting for female cats, so the act of neutering the animals not only helps reduce stray populations in the islands, but it also helps reduce suffering amongst the cats themselves.