A few years ago, even the Committee for Public Service Issues looked at Leon, the mascot of the University of Augsburg, known as the Campus Cat. Students asked via a petition whether the red cat could be appointed as a service cat. The Free State would then have taken over food and medical care, but it didn’t get that far. Service cat hc, that would have been possible, but the members of the state parliament didn’t want to put the cat on the payroll.
Maybe they should have asked in Nördlingen back then. The cat Wendelstein, who comes and goes in the church tower Daniel, is worth a position in the city’s budget, at least under the general term “pigeon defense”. Such a famous church tower needs to be defended, Wendelstein doesn’t have to worry about food. The cat came to the tower guards years ago, who shout “So, G’sell, so” from the tower every night to the delight of residents and tourists. The tower guard on duty had just opened a can of fish. It was the beginning of a steep career in social networks; Wendelstein is a star, especially in Asia. The Nördlingen tower cat is so famous there that one day even Mitsuaki Iwago, one of the most famous Japanese animal filmmakers, came. He then filmed for two days and the result was shown on Japanese television.
Swabian cats obviously have what it takes to become internationally known, especially in the Far East; Campus Cat was also followed by thousands on social networks. In Asia they showed cat pictures and cat videos from the Augsburg campus at a film festival. The university even sold fan merchandise of the cat, who lived with an older lady in the university district and considered the campus his territory. In lecture halls he lounged on or under chairs, in the green spaces he caught mice and the friendly animal allowed himself to be scratched by all students who approached him.
The Augsburg Campus Cat has now died at the age of 16, students announced this on Instagram at the beginning of the week. But the cat should be preserved for posterity, not just in photos and in films: There are already initial ideas for a bronze cast. There would certainly be a place on campus.