Mitigating a cat-astrophe

Lyn Hutchison, a Signal Hill resident, is becoming concerned about feral cats. She said that she and her friends are noticing more and more of them in their neighborhoods, but the resources for addressing the issue seem to be running out.
“A friend of mine asked me if I knew any cat-rescue groups in this area because, every time she goes out to her car in the alley, there are all of these stray cats and kittens running around,” Hutchison said. “She said, ‘It seems like every time I go out there, there’s another kitten there.’”
Hutchison said she called three people whom she knows are involved in animal advocacy, to find out whom to contact about the feral cats, but she was told that all the shelters are full.
“All the cat-rescue groups aren’t rescuing cats anymore,” she said, “because they have nowhere to put them.”
Hutchison was referred to one woman who could possibly help, but even she would only spay or neuter them, feed them, have them inoculated and then release them because she has no space to accommodate them.
Hutchison said she continued to navigate through the local network of residents who are known for assisting in “rescuing” cats but that she kept hitting dead ends because those resources had been tapped out– they had run out of space to bring on more animals. Part of the problem, Hutchison noted, is that kind-hearted individuals who want to help cats by taking them in then run the risk of encountering legal issues.
“If you do try to help, and keep these cats and try to find homes, then [animal control] accuses you of cat-hoarding,” Hutchison said. “So, [cat-rescue advocates] don’t know what to do anymore. I heard one woman had 36 cats, and she took on another part-time job just to feed the cats. And then the neighbors are all complaining because of all these cats. They’re indoors, but the cat litter has to go somewhere. It’s just a big, big problem, and all of them said this is the worst year ever, that they’ve ever seen, because people are so irresponsible or they think that spaying is so expensive that they can’t afford it.”
However, in a phone interview Wednesday, Ted Stevens, manager of Long Beach Animal Care Services (ACS), said residents have several options for addressing the problem.
“This is an ongoing issue in every city, especially in California, because we have nice weather. So, it’s not just Signal Hill and Long Beach,” Stevens said. “Our shelter deals with what we call ‘the kitten explosion’ or ‘the kitten boom.’ Every year, around spring, sometimes we get a second wave. Around August and September, we’ll just have kittens coming in by the dozens, almost every day.”
Stevens said that, despite the seasonal booms in feline population, his shelter has seen the number of kittens drop significantly in the last few years.
“We’ve been doing a lot of spay/neuter supporting,” he said. “There are a lot of groups out there, like Long Beach Spay-Neuter or Stray Cat Alliance. There are just so many rescue groups out there and groups that do what they call TNR programs, which is ‘track, neuter, return.’ They’ll trap the cats, get them altered– spayed and neutered– and then release them back where they came from. The thing with outdoor community cats is there’s a wide range of how and why those cats are there.”
Stevens explained that some are the result of people moving away and leaving cats behind. Other cats may indeed have owners, but they are strictly outdoor cats.
“I have several of those in my neighborhood,” he said. “I know who owns them, but they kind of roam up and down the back yards. Some of them are owned, some are loosely owned and some of them have multiple ‘owners,’ where they have multiple people feeding them, the cats have multiple names, the people don’t know [about] the other people.”
While numerous sources of food may be beneficial to the cats in the short term, Stevens said many times those multiple owners do not take cat care to the next step– spaying or neutering.
“Then, they start having babies,” he said, “and the population can get out of control. So, that’s why a lot of these TNR groups– that’s what their focus is: to get into the communities and get these cats altered so that they’re not having babies.”
Another issue Hutchison mentioned is mange, which she frequently saw near her former place of employment.
“There were these kittens running around that had mange, because the momma cat was immune to mange,” she said. “So, when she’d have kittens, some of them would be OK because they would have that immunity, but every morning I’d come out, and there would be a dead kitten lying there.”
Hutchison also expressed concern about the possibility of mange spreading to humans.
Stevens explained that there are two types of mange: one that can indeed be transmitted to people– termed zoonotic–and one that cannot.
Stevens recommends that residents who encounter such felines first try to identify the owner by asking around the neighborhood. He said if the owner can be located, then ACS can contact them to urge them to have the cat treated.
“If the resident’s able to capture the cat and bring it to us, then we can see what we can do,” Stevens said. “We generally don’t respond to free-roaming cats, because we can’t capture them either, unless it’s confined somewhere or if it’s so sick that it can’t move. But, generally, if it’s still ambulatory and can run away freely or run up trees, then there’s not much we can do. We don’t have the ability to set up traps and monitor traps. We would ask the resident to do that.”
Stevens added that residents who take community cats to ACS can get a voucher to allay the costs of spay or neuter surgery, or ACS will perform the altering itself.
He suggested residents visit ACS’s website– at longbeach.gov/acs– for more information. There is a section under the “Wildlife” tab called “Community Cats” that has tips on addressing issues associated with felines that live outdoors.