By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
Grayson City Council recently voted to continue their successful trap, neuter and release program for feral cats, but according to city employees they haven’t taken any action to implement it. This is partially due to a lack of funding to hire someone to set and monitor the traps, they’ve said. But it’s also because the dog issue has overshadowed the cat problem in Grayson to some extent.
It makes sense. Feral cats can be a nuisance, but they don’t chase children or the elderly into their homes. They don’t make the same mess when they tear into garbage – or if they do, it’s blamed on dogs anyway.
Cats just aren’t as visible as stray dogs, in many ways.
But they still present us with an animal control issue that the cities, and the county, probably need to address. An issue that, in some ways, is more pressing than the dog issue. Because while the issue with the dogs is one of who should be responsible for picking them up, once that issue is resolved we have a place to put them. The county animal shelter is required to accept any dogs from the cities, even if the dog warden won’t currently pick them up.
The animal shelter is not required to accept – and currently does not accept – any abandoned, stray, or feral cats. While they have taken in some cats in the past, in situations where multiple animals were being hoarded, those were exceptions rather than the rule.
But the animal shelter doesn’t need to accept unhomed cats for us to make a difference for that population of animals. These cats are often extremely clever and self-reliant. In addition many are completely unsuitable for placement in a home after an entire life as, for all intents and purposes, a wild animal. They don’t need to be held in a shelter until they find a forever home. What they need is to be immunized, sterilized, and released back where they were found.
This is how you deal with a feral cat problem without housing cats in your animal shelter. In fact, there are studies that show it works better than removing cats from the environment completely.
Cats, like any other creature, can be a little territorial. They aren’t territorial in the same way a dog is – their territoriality tends to be temporal as well as physical. (i.e. This is my space from 9 – 11 a.m. every other day, rather than this is my space all day every day, even when I’m not here.) But they are territorial. If you simply remove a cat from their space, another cat will move into that space to replace them.
If, however, you spay or neuter that cat, and take it back to where you caught it, they will remain territorial, they will continue to run off cats that infringe on their space, but they won’t continue contributing to a growing feral colony. As the colony then declines through natural death, the problem is resolved.
The neutering and spaying also solves one of the major complaints about stray and feral cats in residential areas; the loud noises they make during courtship and the ensuing fights between rivals for female attention.
Trap, neuter, release is a great program. It’s a humane program. It improves the life and health of ferals, solves problems associated with feral colonies, and eventually helps resolve the issue completely.
Grayson needs to make sure their program doesn’t fall through the cracks, and the county and Olive Hill should consider following their example and funding their own programs.
It just makes good sense.
Jeremy D. Wells can be reached at editor@cartercountytimes.com
