Pieterjan Willem Kat
ISKL from 1967 to 1971
Graduated from ISKL
Living in Costa del Sol, Spain



Last updated: June 3, 2008
Email me.
Pieter with his youngest daughter in Gibraltar.

Pieter's 3 daughters and ex-wife Lucy in NH.

"The boy on the left was a bona fide movie star, he was flown to Kenya for a role in "Out of Africa" with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. He was just off the plane from the US and being taken for a walk. He began nuzzling me and licking me to the complete amazement of the trainer. I wanted to take the lion home then and there, but he was too expensive. Maybe that's why I later worked with lions in Botswana? "
1990
June 2nd, 2008

My story has several beginnings. So let’s start with ISKL, that little school on a little hill. Wooden buildings added to an old house, a cement basketball court, a soccer field way down the hill you had to run to (and then run back uphill), our wonderful teachers, and mostly all of you, my friends. We all went our separate ways after graduation, and it is my loss not to have kept up with you. But we were all so independent, looking forward to our futures, eager to tackle the next challenge.

For many of us that was college in the US. I went to the University of Rochester in New York State. Wow, what a change that was from our little school! Rochester was not a big college, only about 4000 (!) students, but it hit me hard. Remember I had never been to the US before, and even in those days Immigration was daunting. They wore guns! Rochester was similarly overwhelming. I arrived with just a suitcase, and had to beg for sheets, blankets, and pillows for my bed. My roommate luckily came equipped, so we had a TV, radio, fridge, and phone in the room. Phew! At Freshman orientation I went out and accepted some pamphlets and buttons from nice people at booths, little did I know that I was to be labelled a radical for many months after that. Down with ROTC and Down with NIXON I proudly and innocently displayed on my jacket made by a wonderful tailor on Batu Road.

OK, I got savvy after a while. I did mediocre in college. My mother wanted me to be a doctor (a proper one), so I was pre-med for a year. Calculus I only got through thanks to my engineering major friends. Physics was like Arabic (sorry Waddah). Statistics I had to take twice, and only managed a C. I failed Shakespeare! But Biology and Geology came to be my forte, and with those grades combined with ones I got from courses in Primitive Art I was able to graduate with distinction.

But wait! I’m ahead of myself. Rochester had an agreement with Fairleigh Dickinson University to have access to a marine biology lab in St Croix. It took about 2 days for me to decide I was going to be a marine biologist! Warm seas, coral reefs, white sand beaches, girls in bikinis… This was the life. Went back to Rochester, got an A the second time for Shakespeare, aced Molecular Genetics, even got a B in Advanced Physics. The lab in St Croix was later destroyed by a hurricane.

After that, off to the University of Delaware for more marine biology. Whoops! Their idea of marine science was like off the coast of Canada, Nova Scotia and the George’s Bank. A big ship pitching around on a grey ocean, survival suits – where were the palm trees? Got an MS in Marine Biology despite seasickness, and went on for safer studies at Johns Hopkins.

Graduating from there in 1983 with a PhD (not a proper doctor, oh well), I got married to Lucy Look, the wonderful mother of my three beautiful daughters. I went to Kenya in 1984, and worked there for ten years with Richard Leakey setting up biological research programs. I got divorced from Lucy (we all make decisions we later regret) and went back to the US to work for a while at the UC Davis Veterinary School and at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

From there I went back to Africa, and worked for many years with lions at the invitation of the Botswana Government. OK, so here I was, a failed Shakespeare scholar, a marine biologist, a geneticist, a rabies specialist, a not-proper doctor working with lions? Well, life takes many strange turns.

That was my first life. Now comes the second beginning to this story.

I mean that literally, as I died on the side of a road in Botswana on September 30, 2004. I was hit by a drunk driver, and but for some good friends who happened to pass by, some very capable emergency technicians, an amazing team on an evacuation plane, and some highly gifted surgeons in Johannesburg I would not be here now. I spent two months in intensive care, and then a year recovering. My doctors said it was a miracle, I can only say it was a strong and stubborn will to live, to walk again, and to keep going. So this is now my second life, or my third or fourth, as I died so many times before I finally woke up in my hospital bed.

But here I am again, the same Pieter Kat. Well, no, I did make many changes. I’ve left Africa, and am now living in Spain. I commute from here to Denmark where I’m writing a book on molecular genetics. When I’m in Spain I write a book on my life in Africa and a cookbook, since I feel I can come up with interesting food having lived all over the world…

Being here in Spain (with internet, yay!) I would like to embark on the third beginning. My mother had saved my ISKL yearbook all those years (like 37 – wow!), and looking through all your pictures brought back such strong memories. And a great desire to contact you all again in this new life. Our friendships then formed our young minds, and we have still much to learn. We might have gone our separate ways, but I don’t think we ever lost each other.

Thank you LeeAnn, thank you Joy, and much love to the memory of Trish DeLong who left us far too soon.

John:

I found that same list and that is where I derived my comment about his work. While it is an impressive list, everyone can clearly see that he is listed as the sole author in very few of those papers/reports. He is usually listed as second or third banana more so once he gets out of his clams.

I also have paper called "lore of the lions" by Kat but it is scanned into pdf. Not sure how to post it.

Now if you really want to see how twisted these these mindless twats are, check out the comments the "Twisted Bunny-hugger delux!!" thread. There they want the lions wiped out 'cause they're killers.

"If I could do it my way I would have ALL lions and hyenas shot on sight. They are horrible, disgusting creatures. Armies could be called in to do the job. Whilst they're at it, they shoud shoot ALL foxes as well. Then we will all be better off. - Frank,, Edinburgh"

"Why did God create such savage creatures? Only an evil being would create beasts that rip other creatures to pieces and cause great suffering."

DUCK-WITS, ALL

Anybody have the inside scoop on why the good clam doctor was really tossed out of Botswana? It strikes me as rather odd that the government had someone that was actively supplying "research" that supported their current reductions/restrictions on trophy hunting and ended up pulling his permits. Sounds like something a tabloid would look into.

Also wondering if the UK government department that provided the funding for his last big "conference" is aware of his organization's directors and their past associations/track record.

I inferred from some articles that he went rogue and "off message" on the FIV issue. But don't know if that was it or not.

I was banned (after a couple of years) from the LionAid facebook page when I started to discuss the merits of the conference. So I suspect they know that they are in a sensitive spot on that.


Look what happens when we don't stir it up on the LionAid facebook wall... nothing..

http://www.facebook.com/#!/Lionaid/likes

Looks like at least one of the LA principles/directors was able to find/raise enough money to attend an art exhibit opening in Bonn, GE in the last few days.

Who knows, maybe they are independently wealthy and are traveling on their own money....but if that is true, why are the organization's reported finances to the UK government are so dismal and they always have their hand out for "donations"?

Saved a screen shot just in case they decide to do that "delete" thing they like to do.