Post by Butch Zaborniak on Jun 10, 2012 7:54:34 GMT -5
HAMILTON — Secluded in a shady grove of trees behind a shopping center in the middle of the suburban sprawl, about a dozen feral cats wait for Brenda Eberst, who spends a part of every afternoon caring for them.
It’s just one of three colonies throughout the township that Eberst monitors as a volunteer with the nonprofit organization Stray Catz Inc.
As a visitor approached the colonies during a recent visit, the characteristically shy cats crept cautiously out of the bushes toward one of two feeding stations where Eberst daily doles out heaps of cat food for the animals.
“When I pull up at five o’clock, they come running because they know it’s me,” she said.
She has been monitoring the colony for nearly five years, making sure the animals are fed, vaccinated and given regular medical treatment.
And while it may seem counterintuitive, Eberst — along with a host of animal organizations — says this sort of treatment is the best way to deal with Hamilton’s increasing population of feral cats.
“Through attrition, the number of cats should go down over time,” she said. “Some of our colonies have gone from 12 cats down to two.”
A growing chorus of local groups and animal rights advocates are urging the municipality to adopt a trap-neuter-release (TNR) program to give the township’s blessing to cat caretakers like Eberst.
Currently, Eberst said, caretakers may face fines of up $2,000 if complaints are filed against them by neighbors for feeding strays. Although she hasn’t heard that any fines have actually been levied, she has heard of police being called about homeowners who feed feral cats in their neighborhoods.
“We don’t want the town citing people and scaring people,” Eberst said. “We wish if they did go to people’s houses they would give them the option of doing TNR. People see the animals and they like to feed them and that’s a good thing.”
For their part, officials in Hamilton have said they will review policies and procedures from across the region to try to determine what the best practice should be.
Currently, the township employs a trap-and-kill program when it receives complaints about feral cats.
“If someone has a complaint regarding a stray or a feral cat colony, we’d certainly encourage the feeding party to stop feeding the feral cat if they are infringing on someone’s personal property or well-being,” said Jeff Plunkett, the township’s health officer. “Then if the person or persons still doesn’t cease to feed, we would consider putting traps to catch the animal,” he said.
Plunkett said the municipal shelter took in 365 cats in 2009. Of those, 124 were surrendered by their owners. He could not immediately say how many were euthanized and how many were adopted.
The shelter currently houses as many as 30 cats.
“Our shelter is a domestic animal shelter, it’s not a wild animal shelter,” Plunkett said. “If the feral cat is a stray and we don’t have a possible owner or someone who claims ownership, then they would stay in our shelter for as many as 10 days. If the feral is deemed unadoptable, then we would euthanize it.”
Under law, Eberst said, shelters are required to hold feral cats for at least seven days before euthanizing them.
And while Hamilton doesn’t have the facilities to implement a wide-ranging TNR program, officials from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) said the best TNR programs are often public/private partnerships with groups like Stray Catz Inc.
“One of the big things that’s always attracted me to TNR is it’s a chance to get the community involved in dealing with the problem,” said Margaret Slater, senior director of epidemiology for the ASPCA. “It gives governments a tool to get people to help because you’re not going to get a lot of support for trapping cats and bringing them in for euthanization.”
Aside from capping population growth — according to the Feral Cat Coalition of San Diego, Calif., two breeding cats can produce, through their descendants, as many as 420,000 offspring over the course of seven years — Slater said neutering has other benefits, including taming wild cats’ behavior.
“We do find, based on research, that cats that are neutered and in colonies tend to gain weight and, over time, that cats that were wild tend to become more socialized,” she said.
“We don’t like people to think that they’re just here and nobody cares about them.” Eberst said of her own colony. “They’re a very healthy colony.”
For an example of how to deal with the problem, Slater said, Hamilton need look no further that the Burlington County Feral Cat Initiative, a public/private partnership that began in 2004. The program organized and coordinated the activities of a number of different organizations and shelters to help stabilize and reduce feral cat populations.
The program cites the success of TNR programs across the state. According to case studies posted on its website, njferals.org, TNR programs helped to reduce feral cat populations in Cape May by half over the 10 years since their policy was implemented. In Atlantic City, the group claims that TNR has led to a 70 percent decrease in the feral cat population under the city’s boardwalk.
By partnering with nonprofit organizations, Slater said, municipalities avoid incurring the bulk of the cost of TNR programs.
In Eberst’s case, her organization works with a Willow Grove, Pa., clinic that provides a bulk rate for neutering services. In addition, some area veterinarians provide discounted rates for the group when cats require medical care, she said.
Slater and Eberst said that, in some cases, TNR programs can prove to be cheaper than performing euthanizations, which require animals to be held in municipal shelters for a period of time before being carried out.
“In some cases it’s much less expensive to do sterilization,” Slater said. “In some communities the government pays nothing and its entirely done through nonprofits who do fundraising and grant writing.”
Credit: Trenton Times
www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2010/09/hamilton_trapneuter_program_ke.html