Another fat cat shows up at Blackwood shelter

There's a new fat cat in town.

When Prince Chunk, the reported 44-pound pussycat, was discovered in Voorhees in late July, the tubby tabby made national headlines and captivated morning television news shows.

This week, a pretender to Chunk's throne arrived on the scene.

He's Shamu - a 35-pound, black-and-white furball - who was found in Camden on Monday and dropped off at the same Blackwood animal shelter where Prince Chunk launched his 15 minutes of fame.

Shamu looks chubbier than his predecessor - and he may well be.

"Chunk was a big cat with a large bone structure. He looked very fat but could carry his weight well," Jennifer Andersch, director of the Camden County Animal Shelter, said yesterday.

It may be an "optical illusion," Andersch said, but Shamu appears much bigger than Prince Chunk.

"Shamu has dainty bones," Andersch said. "With the 35 on him, he looks absolutely massive."

That's no illusion, said Prince Chunk's current caretaker.

Vince Damiani, 17, works at the Camden County shelter and his family has provided foster care for Chunk since the cat became a national celebrity.

"I weighed him myself" on Aug. 3, said Damiani, of Turnersville. "He only came up in the mid-20-pound range."

Damiani took Chunk to a veterinarian who confirmed his suspicion: At 22 pounds, Chunk weighed half what the weight had reported.

"It's shocking, but we're excited about it," Damiani said. "He's going to live longer and it's going to be easier to get the remaining weight off him."

Andersch is mystified by the apparent discrepancy.

"I own a 22-pounder, and mine looks like a waify thing compared to Chunk," Andersch said.

Chunk has been on a diet and doesn't like the food he's being served, Andersch said, which might contribute to a poor appetite.

"But I can't imagine that the animal lost that much weight," she said.

Prince Chunk's heft isn't the only point of contention between Andersch and Damiani.

The shelter still owns Chunk. Officials there chose Damiani and his family from a pool of 500 applicants who wanted to adopt the cat.

Andersch described the Damianis as "excellent, a model foster family." But she said she was "heartbroken" after they didn't want Chunk to make public appearances that would solely benefit the shelter. Whether the Damianis can keep Chunk is still being worked out.

"We don't want to exploit or stress [the cat] out, but we want Chunk to continue to be our spokeskitty," Andersch said. "

Damiani suspects that Chunk's girth was "misrepresented," but honestly so. He attributes the possible mix-up to a glitchy dog scale that was used when Chunk proved too big for the scale used to weigh small animals.

"Chunk is happy, adjusted. He's doing great," Damiani said. "And we were ready for a 44-pound cat. He's only 22. You've seen the pictures: Can you imagine a cat twice that size?"

Prince Chunk, once known as Powder, was picked up as a stray after his owner lost her house to foreclosure.

Shamu, the whale of a cat, was in good health yesterday at the shelter, where he was housed in an oversize cage. He'll be held for five days to give his owner a chance to claim him.