‘There is a method to this issue’

To the Editor:
Understand if free roaming cats are left unchecked, they will breed. The population will increase. If you remove or kill them, new ones will occupy that spot. The cycle continues. This is why the long term fix is best. It is safer for the public, cheaper for the municipality, and can help the cat population.
Organizations have studied this problem for many years. You can visit many websites. Get a cost analysis on TNR vs. euthanasia. Some advocate culling feral cat populations by trapping and euthanasia, which doesn’t work. They’ll just keep repeating the cycle! If the factors that allowed the colony to grow in the first place are not addressed as well, new colonies will form at the same location, when humans drop cats off at specific locations, when cats escape trapping, and when cats move in to these now open areas no longer have to fight for space to continue to breed. This is called “the vacuum effect.”
Bayonne will throw good money after bad because no matter how many cats you remove, new ones will fill that space. When new ones move in to the now freed space, they no longer have to fight for it, leaving intact or unneutered animals behind to continue to reproduce. That will not diminish cat colonies!
TNR cats will defend their territory. They’ve been fed, ear tipped to identify them as having regular inoculations that keep them healthy, thus lowering health risks, etc. Eventually, they die off naturally because they can no longer breed! Adoptable cats and kittens will be adopted out as pets already spayed and neutered.
Human owners are not held accountable for sterilizing their pets to prevent this from happening. They’re not punished for abandoning their pets. Programs designed to kill the cats will not address lack of human accountability for the problem.
There are numerous organizations willing to help solve this problem. It’s a thankless job. It’s a delicate issue. I respect the research and organizations out there, which have much more information and knowledge on dealing with the issue. Atlantic City’s Director of Health and Human Services said that, 10 years ago, he was receiving calls regularly about stray cats roaming the city. The Boardwalk Cats Project changed all that. They have done a wonderful job fixing the problem and saving the cats, he said in the Philadelphia papers and on www.philly.com posted on July 24, 2010.
Diseases can be transmitted from all animals and humans, not just cats. I’ve seen people walk their dogs while holding a plastic bag never using it. Birds leave “presents,” too. Where does it end? We can’t get paranoid over everything.
Stephen Ostroff , M.D., M.P.H., Deputy Director, National Center for Infectious Diseases, CDC and Prevention, before the U.S. Senate stated that, “We live in an era of emerging infectious diseases. Over the last several decades, dozens of newly recognized infectious diseases have been identified, many of which pose significant threats to public health and safety.”
You can’t blame everything on feral cats! Remember, when the cats away the rats will play!

D. ELIOT

© 2000, Newspaper Media Group