Speaking out for the first time since his return to The Park in early January, Chef Tab Tricolore recounted the details surrounding his December disappearance in a radio interview  yesterday. He also spoke candidly about the obvious changes in his behaviour.

“I was forcibly taken from The Park and neutered,” he told host Yannis Tavros on his Toro Talk Radio show yesterday afternoon.

“I was trapped by Humans while sourcing food for Klo [Tricolore’s fine dining establishment]. Of course, I didn’t know it was a trap. I sniffed something incredible and thought I have to get some of that for tonight’s service. It was something I’d never tasted before. It had a different aroma from anything I’d ever smelled. I think it was smoked. As soon as I’d ingested a piece of it, I heard a door slam behind me and I realized what had happened,” he said.

Tavros, who sounded visibly shaken by the revelation, asked Tricolore if he had tried to escape.

“There was no escaping,” Tricolore replied. “But I did manage to draw blood from a number of them.”

He said he was put in the back of a van and realized he was only one of many who’d been caught that morning.

“We all had the same story. It was terrifying. At that moment, I realized it didn’t matter who you were or what you’d accomplished. Humans see us as all the same.”

Tricolore said that, along with the others, he was taken to a clinic where he was anaesthetized and then neutered.

“I woke up in this prison cell. It was horrible. Some of the hair was missing from my arm and my whole body ached. I was parched, but there was no water bowl. A few hours later, they brought me some food and water…something awful that came out of a can. I don’t know what it was. But I was so hungry, I ate it. I spent a couple of days there, never going out, never seeing the light of day. There were at least a dozen of us. We were in the middle of planning an escape when three Humans came in with the biggest cage I’ve ever seen. They herded us into it and then back into the van and dropped us off just outside The Park.”

The renowned  chef, restaurateur, and award-winning author said he “struggled every day with the reality of what happened to him” until he finally came to a “place of acceptance.”

“It’s done,” he said, matter-of-factly. “There’s nothing I can do to undo it. I could, as some have suggested, plot my revenge. But these Humans are dangerous and there’s no guarantee I could survive an attempt at revenge,” he said.

Instead, Tricolore said he’d rather use his new and hard-won knowledge to educate Park Animals. And that’s the reason he chose to speak out during Enforced Domestication Awareness Month.

“I’m a different Cat now. There’s no getting away from that. Some say I’m ‘mellow,’ but that’s just a euphemism. I’m just not the same. But I think I can do some good and that’s what I’m trying to do. If I can prevent this from happening to one other Cat, it will have been worth it,” he said.