They may be seen slouching behind restaurants or wandering around parks. These cats appear domesticated at first. They’re actually wild animals.
Feral cat can be the result of abandoned or stray household pets. They quickly return to their wild nature after being raised without any human interaction.
Many animal control departments in cities and counties are only mandated to handle dogs, not cats. Feral cats were left uncontrollable for many decades.
Experts estimate that 70 million cats are feral in the United States. This is the result of a lack of effort made to reduce the number of these cats and their ability to reproduce.
This number is for wildlife and ornithology groups that are concerned about these predators, who they believe decimate bird populations. They also think this poses a threat to public health. These organizations are calling for the cats to be removed from their natural habitats and brought into animal shelters where they will often die.
This has caused an uproar from advocates of feral cats who claim that the cats have been unfairly blamed for killing animals. In the 1990s, thousands of animal welfare organizations and volunteers across the nation stepped up to help control wild cat populations through mass sterilization.
Ron Jurek is a wildlife scientist for the California Department of Fish and Game. He has been keeping a keen eye on how feral and roaming cats affect native species. One of these species includes the California less tern. This federally endangered bird nests on the California coast.
He said: “Cats kill wildlife in a large degree. This is not something that many people like to think about.”
He said that in urban areas there were hundreds of cats on a square mile (1,6 square kilometers), more than the natural environment can sustain.
Experts estimate the exact numbers, but they do know that domestic cats and feral cat kill more than one billion birds and small mammals each year, including rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels.
It is believed that feline predators prey upon common species such as house wrens and Florida scrub jays as well as endangered and rare species such as Florida scrub jays and piping plovers.
Jurek claims that domestic and feral cats in California have killed one or more colonies of lesser terns every year for over ten years. These small, white birds form part of a massive monitoring program that involves countless volunteers. They monitor the nesting colonies for six months.
Jurek stated that a colony can be destroyed in just a matter of days if it is found by a cat.
Bird decline “caused by humans”
Michael Mountain, founder of Best Friends Animal Society, Kanab (Utah), says that there’s no proof to suggest feral cats were responsible for the decline of bird populations.
Mountain stated that feral cats are intelligent, have little to eat and must live as wild animals. The last thing that a wild cat would want to do is spend his time chasing birds.
He said that instead, their diet is made up of insects, mice and lizards.
Mountain stated that his opinions on the issue were not one-sided. Best Friends Animal Shelter, the nation’s largest animal shelter at 3,300 acres (1,300 hectares), not only takes care of domestic and feral cats, but also birds.
Mountain says that the decline of songbirds is due to many factors including habitat loss and pollution.
David I. The study was conducted by John H. Rappole, Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center and David I. King from the U.S. Forest Service Northeastern Research Station. According to the study, the greatest problem for birds is deforestation in tropical areas.
Mountain stated, “We all have a responsibility to find solutions that will help control the feral cats population.” Mountain said that killing all feral cats would not help birds.
Linda Winter disagrees
Winter is director of ABC’s Cats Indoors campaign. campaign. This conservation group, located in Washington, D.C., began the campaign seven years ago, to inform the public about the dangers of free-roaming felines to wildlife and birds.
Conservancy members believe that feral cats should be permanently removed from their natural environment, and placed in shelters. Most wild cats cannot be domesticated. Shelters often kill the animals within minutes of receiving them.
Winter stated that if people are against euthanizing cats, because they cannot find homes for them in many cases, these people can take the cats home or to a stray or feral cat sanctuary, so that those cats can be safe, protected, and will not cause harm to other animals or people. This is, according to Winter, the only solution.
Mountain counters that putting all cats into sanctuaries would be “totally absurd and totally impractical.” Best Friends shelter is among the very few in the United States that house feral cats, but only those who are sick or have special needs.
Mountain stated that the likelihood of this happening to millions of feral cat is, in all honesty, ridiculous. ABC doesn’t mean it at all. They want to make something that is beautiful and which nobody could do, but which would justify killing them all.
Spay and Neuter
Julie Levy, a professor and veterinarian at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine located in Gainesville is a member of this group. She believes that the Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR), method is the best way to reduce wild cat population permanently. This involves trapping, sterilizing, and vaccinating entire colonies of feral cats by veterinarians.
Young kittens can be trained and placed in homes. Adults are taken outside, and volunteers will feed them.
It is not a quick or simple method
Levy conducted an 11-year study in which she discovered that cats live an average 7 years following their spaying and return to the territory.
Levy explained that the situation was a “double-edged blade” because Levy is happy to see cats in good health and living a full life. But it means we cannot expect the neutering programs to be effective very quickly.
Levy founded Operation Catnip – the biggest TNR program of the United States. Spay-neuter clinics take place every month, where 7 veterinarians work with 30 volunteers to sterilize 150 cats in a matter of hours.
Public and financial backing is widespread for many programs like Operation Catnip.
A private foundation awarded a grant of US$9.5 million to the California Veterinary Medical Association in 1999 for its Feral Cat Altering Program. This program performed 170 334 free surgeries on feral cats in the entire state.
Levy believes that something must be realistically done to reduce feral cat populations. However, killing cats as suggested by many wildlife groups is not possible.
She said, “People who are feeding these cats will not cooperate with such programs. You have to involve people who are aware of where they are to find a solution.” You can use this massive volunteer force for the cause or go to war.
Winter of ABC, who has been vocal about the fight between feral activists and wildlife groups, opposes TNR because released cats kill more wildlife. She also said that caregivers’ feeding stations attract animals such as raccoons, skunks, and others that are rabid and carry other diseases. This creates a threat to public health.
Cats can transmit disease as well. Animal control officials discovered in August that more than 30 feral cats were infected by salmonella. Salmonella is contagious and can be spread to humans or pets. However, no humans were infected.
Winter, the owner of only two cats that live indoors said: “TNR just isn’t a solution for everyone and all animals.” They need to find another solution.
Levy is the only one who has not come up with a better solution. She is working on a female and male cat sterilization vaccine with a group of wildlife researchers.
She said, “We are on the hunt for a great one.” We’re one year into a two-year research study on male cats and the results are looking promising.
She said that if the vaccine were developed, then trained technicians could go out and inject cats. By reducing costs, the vaccine could make TNR more effective.