A memory from Tomorrow's World, a little while ago. Apparently, the cleanup guys on an oil spill were using straw to tease out bird's feathers, and they found that the straw was absorbing the oil (by capillary action) better than the chemical was dissolving it. So some guy is currently trying to sell these straw-bale booms to cleanup operations, which'll have the big bonus that there's no dangerous chemicals to contend with. Bear in mind that this will probably require liquid oil though, so the kind of tar-spots that your cat's probably got are unlikely to be helped.

Grab.