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U.S. Faces Growing Feral Cat Problem
Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News

September 7, 2004
You may have seen them wandering through parks or languishing behind restaurants. At first, these cats look domesticated. But they're really wild animals.

Feral cats are the offspring of stray or abandoned household pets. Raised without human contact, they quickly revert to a wild state and form colonies wherever food and shelter are available.

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Many city and county animal control agencies are mandated only to deal with dogs—not cats. So for decades feral cats have remained untouchable.

Some feline experts now estimate 70 million feral cats live in the United States, the consequence of little effort to control the population and of the cat's ability to reproduce quickly.

The number concerns wildlife and ornithology organizations that believe these stealthy predators decimate bird populations and threaten public health. The organizations want the cats removed from the environment and taken to animal shelters, where they are often killed.

That's caused a chorus of hisses from feral cat advocates who say the cats are unjustly being blamed for killing wildlife. Thousands of volunteers and animal welfare groups throughout the country stepped forward in the early 1990s to control the wild cat population through mass sterilization programs.

Ron Jurek, a wildlife biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game, has kept a close eye on the impact feral and free-roaming domestic cats have on native species, like the California least tern, a federal endangered bird that nests along the coast.

"Cats do kill wildlife to a significant degree, which is not a popular notion with a lot of people," he said.

In urban areas, he said, there are hundreds of cats per square mile (1.6 square kilometers)—more cats than nature can support.

Exact numbers are unknown, but some experts estimate that each year domestic and feral cats kill hundreds of millions of birds, and more than a billion small mammals, such as rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks.

Feline predators are believed to prey on common species, such as cardinals, blue jays, and house wrens, as well as rare and endangered species, such as piping plovers and Florida scrub jays.

For more than ten years, Jurek says, feral and domestic cats have been a persistent problem in California, killing one or two colonies of least terns each year. The small white birds are part of an intense monitoring program with a tremendous number of volunteers who watch the colonies throughout the six-month nesting season.

If a cat finds the colony, it can destroy the colony in a few days, if not overnight," Jurek said.

Bird Decline "Caused by Humans"

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Michael Mountain, one of the founders of Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, says there is no evidence that feral cats are to blame for a decline in the bird population at large.

"Ferals are savvy, don't have enough to eat, and have to live like real (wild) animals," Mountain said. "So the last thing a feral cat wants to do is waste his energy chasing after birds."

Instead, he said their diet consists of mice, insects, and lizards.

Mountain said his views on this issue are not one-sided. The 3,300-acre (1,300-hectare) Best Friends animal shelter, which is the largest in the country, not only cares for feral and domestic cats—it also cares for birds.

The decline in songbird populations is caused by many factors, Mountain says, including habitat loss, pollution, pesticides, and window strikes.

He also notes a new report by David I. King of the U.S. Forest Service's Northeastern Research Station and John H. Rappole of the Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center. The study concludes that the biggest problem is the loss of the birds' winter habitat in the tropics due to deforestation.

"What we all need to do, since we all care about animals, is find real solutions (to controlling the feral cat population)," Mountain said. "Trying to kill off all the feral cats is not going to help the birds."

Linda Winter disagrees.

Winter is the director of the American Bird Conservancy's (ABC) Cats Indoors! campaign. The conservation group, based in Washington, D.C., started the program seven years ago to educate the public that free-roaming cats pose a significant risk to birds and other wildlife.

The conservancy believes feral felines should be removed permanently from the environment and taken to shelters. The majority of wild cats, though, cannot be domesticated. Consequently shelters kill them, sometimes minutes after the cats are dropped off.

"If people object to those cats being euthanized, since quite often homes can't be found for them, then those people should take those cats and put them on their own property or in stray and feral cat sanctuaries, where they can be protected and safe and not harm any other animal or harm the general public," Winter said. "That, to us, is the real solution."

Placing all the cats in sanctuaries is "totally impractical and completely absurd," counters Mountain. Best Friends is one of the few shelters in the country that houses feral cats—but only sick or disabled cats in need of special care.

"The likelihood of that being able to happen for millions of feral cats is, frankly, just silly," Mountain said. "And they [ABC] don't actually mean that at all. What they mean is to put something out [to the public] that sounds lovely—and which, of course, nobody can do—to justify the other approach, which is to kill them all."

Spay and Neuter

Julie Levy is a veterinarian and professor at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville. She says the answer to permanently reducing wild cat populations is through the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) method, in which entire colonies of cats are trapped, vaccinated, and sterilized by a veterinarian.

Homes are found for young kittens, which can be tamed. Healthy adults are returned outdoors, where volunteers feed and look after them for the remainder of their lives.

The method, though, is neither quick nor simple.

In a study conducted by Levy over an 11-year period, she found the cats lived an average of 7 years after being spayed and brought back to their territory.

"It's become a double-edged sword, because we're happy for the cats that they're living life and in good health," Levy said. "But it also means that we can't expect our neuter programs to work really quickly."

Levy is also the founder of Operation Catnip, the largest TNR program in the country. Monthly spay-neuter clinics are held where a team of 7 veterinarians and staff of 30 volunteers sterilize up to 150 cats within a few hours.

Many programs, like Operation Catnip, are backed by large-scale public and financial support.

In 1999, for example, the California Veterinary Medical Association's Feral Cat Altering Program was awarded a three-year, U.S. 9.5-million-dollar grant by a private foundation. The program fixed feral cats throughout the state for free, performing 170,334 surgeries.

Levy says something realistic needs to be done to reduce the feral population—but killing the cats, as many wildlife organizations have suggested, is not feasible.

"The people who feed these cats are not going to cooperate with those kinds of programs, and you have to engage the people who know where the cats are in any solution," she said. "So you can either harness this huge volunteer force to help in the solution or you can go to war with it."

The ABC's Winter, who is vocal in the battle between wildlife groups and feral advocates, says she opposes the TNR method because the released cats continue to kill wildlife. Another problem, she said, is that feeding stations maintained by caregivers attract animals like raccoons and skunks that carry rabies and other diseases, creating a public health threat.

The cats can also transmit diseases. In August, animal control officials in Eugene, Oregon, reportedly discovered more than three dozen feral cats infected with salmonella, which is contagious to people and pets. No humans, however, were reported to be infected.

"TNR is just not a solution that helps everybody and all animals involved," said Winter, an owner of two indoor-only cats. "They need to figure out another way."

Levy hasn't come up with another way. But she is currently working with a wildlife research group to develop a sterilization vaccine for female and male cats.

"We're on the trail of a good one," she said. "We're now one year into a two-year study with male cats, and it's looking extremely promising."

If the vaccine is developed, she said, trained technicians would go into the field and inject the cats. The vaccine would make TNR programs more efficient by helping reduce costs and labor.

just another reason they say "cat, the other white meat"

hahahahaha


good one


i am so <not> a cat lover

We have a chinese restruant in our area that "takes care" of the stray cats, seriously cats go near their dumpster and are never seen again, it's like the Bermuda Triangle for cats.

hahaha


that's another good one

yes, a good place for them

recycle those cats

I think this was a great topic to post, I rescue animals on a regular basis, my last litter of kittens was in fact feral - the mother had abandoned them and they were alone, i rehabilitated them made sure that they were neutered and spayed and they all found homes. Its a huge growing problem, and I'm glad that im not the only one aware of it. and to the heartless people that made the comments about "recycling" them - screw you. im not mad that thats your opinion, your entitled to it. but here people like me are spending thier money to take care of a problem so that it doesnt bother people like you. i think your heartless for the comments you made. i realize that now you all think im some tree hugging chik, but i just try to do my part in whatever i can, so go ahead and make your comments about and call me an idiot, but this is my opinion, and im entitled to post it just like you posted yours. i dont start trouble here, never have, dont mean to, so if i offended you im sorry.

we had a chinese buffet a few miles away that got shut down for serving up stray dogs and cats. thank god i never ate there.

Thank god why? You might have missed out on the best meal of your life:)

you do not know me, so you cannot accuse me
of being heartless,
i have more heart than most people...


i am mostly a VEGETARIAN
BUT
i would rather see animals eaten than euthanized

OH AND BY THE WAY

YOU AT 22 AND OUT SAVING CATS

WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT


WHEN I WAS 22 ,

I WAS BUSILY MARRIED WITH THREE LITTLE CHILDREN

I PREFER FAMILY AND CHILDREN

AND SONGBIRDS

OVER CATS

cats? you would rather see a cat eaten than humanely and painlessly ended? mabey stranded on a freezing artic mountian with no vegitation at the brink of starvation - but in civilization - um no.

im sorry but id rather be established and start a family than struggle cuz i had an oops. unless your just a rich girl that was taken care of - and thats just as sad.

YES, I WOULD RATHER SEE A CAT BE EATEN
AND RECYCLED THAN TO BE EUTHANIZED
AND THEN WHAT DO THEY DO WITH THEM ?
RECYCLE THEM INTO FERTILIZER ?

YES, AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION,
PEOPLE ARE REALLY STARVING
EVEN IN CIVILIZED AMERICA

and in that case thats y im at the homeless shelters every thanksgiving and everyday i buy them hot coffee and food if i see them on the corner. i do everything i can manage with everything, not just animals.

NOW WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ?

I HAD NO "OOOPS ' AS YOU CALL IT

YOU ARE SO OUT THERE IN LEFT FIELD

WHAT ARE YOU INSINUATING NOW?

YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHO I AM

FOR THE RECORD...JUST FYI

I WAS ESTABLISHED AND FULLY MARRIED
AND VERY MUCH IN LOVE
BEFORE I GOT PREGNANT

NOTHING YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY AWARE OF OR PRIVY TO

YOU HAVE SOME NERVE LITTLE GIRL

YOU ARE MAKING SOME VERY OFF THE WALL ACCUSATIONS
WHO THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ?

I AM SO DONE HERE

LET THE VULTURES COME EAT THE LEFTOVER CARRION

OK, I'm completely missing the point here. Why, exactly, would anyone see an excess population of feral cats as being any sort of problem? I live in LA and where I live, we have the world's absolute best excess cat population answer. It's called the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake and they will control the "excess" population of ANY gaggle of cats in extremely little time. Cats, being the stupid creatures of habit they are, are easily attracted to the slight movement of a diamondback as it stealthily lies in ambush mode in the short grass. A couple times a week in my backyard, I see a nice fat diamondback, which I've named "Make Kitty do the chicken" that's taken up residence in our backyard, charm a cat, sometimes feral, sometimes one of the neighbor's domesticated ones that they've allowed to wander, lol, close enough to strike it. The snake sort of "hypnotizes" the stupid cat into just standing there, staring at him, as he winds up preparing to strike. The strike is so lightning fast, all the stupid cat can do is stand there with this "WTF was THAT and why does my neck feel suddenly like it's on fire?" look on it's stupid about-to-be-dead face. Cat stands there for about 5 minutes as the venom spreads and then falls over and does "the chicken" for about 3 minutes until all 9 of it's lives depart. Make Kitty do the Chicken slithers over the now-dead cat to make sure his handiwork was successful, takes a look, smiles at me and slithers back down the hill to his burrow. Unfortunately, cats are way too big for Make Kitty do the Chicken to swallow, so I have to wrap their carcasses up in newspaper, Gladbag them and send them off to a friend who has an incinerator. If you just tossed them into the trash (where they belong), some other poor critter, most likely a dog or raccoon, might drag them out, eat them and suffer the same fate as the cat. Snake venom remains lethal in a corpse for several days and we don't want to take a chance on killing any little doggies or raccoons do we now? I say let nature deal with the cats, the show that snakes make getting rid of them is well worth seeing and highly effective. Make Kitty do the Chicken is an extremely large diamondback, he's about 7 or 8 feet long and maybe 5 inches in diameter mid-body. He seems like a nice enough sort as a neighbor, long as there's an ample supply of little kitty cats for him to play with, lol. I'm just guessing, but based on what I've seen so far, I would guess that Make Kitty do the Chicken alone could be responsible for killing maybe 100 to 150 wild cats in a single year. Since Make Kitty do the Chicken doesn't show any interest at all in eating his kills, I assume he's just another one of the guys and hates cats like we all do. My hat's off to ya, Make Kitty do the Chicken, and thanks for taking care of my girlfriend's two stupid house cats that wanted to show you how superior cats are to snakes. The look on the black and white ones face as you clamped down on his neck and injected him was truly priceless, lol. It was no contest, you dispatched both of them with the ease that only a large viper is capable of. You got any constrictor relatives living anywhere in the neighborhood? Man, that would be worth seeing, a boa or a retic python showing a cat how "superior" they are to constrictors, lol.

I'm sure that Make Kitty do the Chicken's relatives throughout the LA area, as well as the rest of California, are doing a fine, fine, fine job of ridding the city of the vermin that cats, feral and domesticated, are. So what's the problem here? Let's let nature do her work and rid the overpopulation the natural way. Keep those big diamondback's milked down so if they do happen to accidentally mistake a human for a cat or a rat, their bite may not be as severe as it would be in the absence of all the cats they're biting and keeping their venom down. Let nature do her work and don't interfere with her, nature will always find a solution to any overpopulation problem, with the apparent exception of the 3i's, Idiots, Imbeciles and Incompetents. We need to work on those three don't we?

oh thank you




that was perfect

just what was needed here



you are awesome ramboracoon

i have to laugh some more

here's to "make kitty do the chicken"

problem is there are not enough diamondback rattlers
up along the river here in northern cali
where the profusion of nasty stinky
toxoplasmosis ridden songbird- killing
feral cats are

but ....
if "make kitty do the chicken" runs out of play toys

there are plenty cats up here to play with
and to successfully eradicate