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Program wants to reduce number of feral cats

By Derek J. Fuchs, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Photos
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Removed from trap
(Keith Hodan/Tribune-Review)

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Stray
(Keith Hodan/Tribune-Review)

Feral cat facts
  • A feral cat has lived its entire life in the wild, perhaps born to a stray or abandoned cat.

  • If the cat approaches you, looks disheveled or starts eating food as soon as you put it on the ground, it's probably a stray -- not a feral cat, which is a wild animal.

  • Feral kittens as old as eight to 10 weeks can be tamed. A feral cat older than that isn't likely to become a domestic cat.

    Source: Alley Cat Allies, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

    Controlling kitty
  • The City of Pittsburgh offers a program in which it will give out vouchers for part of the cost of spaying or neutering a pet. Pet owners who live in the city can qualify. Details: (412) 255-2036.

  • The Homeless Cat Management Team provides free spaying or neutering for feral cats twice a month. Details: (412) 321-4060, ext. 4.

    FERAL CAT FACTS

  • A feral cat has lived its entire life in the wild, perhaps born to a stray or abandoned cat.

  • If the cat approaches you, looks disheveled or starts eating food as soon as you put it on the ground, it's probably a stray -- not a feral cat, which is a wild animal.

  • Feral kittens as old as eight to 10 weeks can be tamed. A feral cat older than that isn't likely to become a domestic cat.

    Source: Alley Cat Allies, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

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    • Pennsylvania legislators now can bask in triumph: Today is officially National Feral Cat Day in the commonwealth because of them.

    Critics might lambaste the House of Representatives for not pushing through a workable state budget, but animal lovers are pleased with House Resolution 413's friction-free coup last month.

    The resolution was intended to publicize a humane way of reducing the number of feral cats -- cats typically born to stray or abandoned house cats. The kitties then roam the streets, wild. Dan Frankel, a Squirrel Hill Democrat and one of about 45 sponsors of the resolution, is getting praise from his constituents about it. That's more of a response than he usually gets about what he does in Harrisburg.

    "Typically, you get no real reactions," he said.

    Chris Whyle, vice president of the Homeless Cat Management Team, said she hopes Feral Cat Day brings attention to her program, which exists solely to spay or neuter feral cats.

    The group encourages people who feed feral cats to trap the creatures and bring them to the program's volunteer veterinarians, who will alter the animals. The group releases post-surgery cats back into the areas where they were found.

    Veterinarians volunteering for the organization have altered about 5,000 cats in the Pittsburgh area since 1998. The feral cat colonies, unable to reproduce, eventually die out.

    Feeding feral cats, which the Homeless Cat Management Team expects people to do after surgery, is discouraged by Allegheny County's Health Department.

    The county can force people to not feed the cats if they're a nuisance to the neighborhood. But the county tacitly supports the program, said Bill Todaro, entomologist for the county Health Department.

    It can't argue with a program that reduces the number of feral cats defecating in local flower beds and even roughing up humans, he said.

    And there's no shortage of strays, Whyle said.

    "Pet owners will always dump (more of) them," she said, "and we are totally not in favor of that."

    Neither is Pennsylvania, in which pet abandonment is a crime.

    And the cats wouldn't work in lieu of the City of Pittsburgh's recently axed rodent control program. Not even tough feral cats can handle a full-grown rat, Todaro said.


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