After meeting thousands of cats as a zoology grad student, I can truly say Otis was a very unique cat.

For starters, he was an impressive 22 pounds of lean muscle mass.

Here he is dwarfing a MacBook Pro.

He spent most of his days hunting intensely, taking frequent naps, and eating 6 cans of food a day.

Researchers estimate that cats only bring 50% of their kills home. Well, Otis brought about 3 kills home a day for 10 years, so one can only imagine the true numbers.

He has brought home every kind of bird, rodent, and small mammal in the area. Some of his most impressive catches include countless rabbits, 2 crows, 3 hummingbirds, snakes, a fish, and a raccoon.

Despite his wild instincts when he is outside, he was a loving cat around people. He would run out of the forest and stop his hunt to come greet you if you ever called his name, even if he was 200 yards away. It was almost as if there were two sides to him struggling to compete. There was his wild side and his domestic side.

He was also incredibly intuitive and seemed to know his place in the world. He was known to roam for miles around the lake we lived on. He owned the territory, multiple neighbors complained that this cat was intimidating their labradors and husky's.

He may have scared off dogs but he also went on runs like a dog.

Eventually the other two cats learned they could go on adventures away from home.

Then the adventures got longer and eventually we walked a few miles every night.

He truly was a cat with an above average influence on the world around him. Now that he is gone the whole ecosystem is changing.