Urinating on basement windows, leaving feces in backyards and attacking household pets are some of the offenses blamed on the ever-growing number of feral cats in Colonie, and residents said they are fed up with the lack of action from the town.
Julie Poulin, Jeanine McCarten and Barbra Ebel said they have been forced to take matters into their own hands to deal with a recent surge of feral cats wandering the streets of North Elmhurst and Rooney avenues by setting up traps and taking the animals to local animal to have them spayed and neutered.
This has been taking up our time, Poulin said. `You wake up in the morning and you look out the window, ‘Are there any cats out there?’ You come home from work and you look out the window, ‘Are there any cats out there?’ You go out and you look in the bushes, ‘Are there any cats in there?’ It’s been preoccupying all of us.`
Feral cats, which are different from stray cats, are essentially wild cats since they never been domesticated as they were born from stray cats.
The women pleaded with the Colonie Town Board to do something with these feral cats at a Thursday, July 15, meeting, where they were told the town would look into the situation.
Ebel described an instance during this past winter where she and her husband were in the basement when a feral cat came and sprayed on the basement window. The stench of urine was so bad, according to Ebel, it forced the couple out of the basement. They then had to take a pail of hot water to wash off the urine.
`And that smell isn’t easy to get rid of,` she said. `It’s just sickening.
McCarten said her main concern is zoonotic diseases, which can be transferred from animals to humans. One of the diseases she discussed was Bartonella, also known as cat scratch disease, which occurs when a human is bitten or scratched by a cat, causing the lymph nodes of the head, neck and upper limbs to swell up after an infection, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. The infection may also cause symptoms such as a fever and a headache.
McCarten said she was advised to have one of the cats she took to the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society checked for Bartonella, which the cat tested positive for.
`When we went to the Town Board meeting in the middle of the month, that was one of the things that we wanted to impress on them,` McCarten said. `That it’s not just they’re a nuisance, but that it’s really, truly a healthcare issue.`
The women have set up traps in their backyards to catch the felines, and they said they have seen the animals that travel with the captured cat sit around and look on in confusion.
Executive Director of the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society Brad Shear said the best recommendation he can give to solving this problem is the Trap Neuter Return method. With TNR, a captured cat is taken to an animal shelter to be spayed or neutered and have the tip of its left ear clipped so it can be identified as already fixed.
`We will help by spaying or neutering them,` Shear said. `We can’t take the cats in because they do not socialize well.`
Controlling the population of feral cats is Shear’s main objective, which he said has become a national problem. In just Colonie alone, nearly 22,000 cats live in homes, according to Shear. He said the number of cats living on the streets is similar.
Shear advises residents to not feed the cats because they are already well adapted outdoors and likely have a food source.
`I think people want to do the right thing by feeding them,` he said.
One of Poulin’s neighbor’s, Paul Koren, feeds many of the cats that wander into his backyard. He even is keeping one of the kittens in his house.
`I love all animals,` he said. `I guess I’m just a sucker for them.`
Koren, who is a Korean War veteran and a baseball umpire, said he even feeds the skunks and raccoons, joking he saw two of the skunks `making love` in his backyard one evening. He has three cabinets stocked full of cat food to feed the cats, and also stores food in his fridge for other animals.
He is somewhat wary about taking the kittens to an animal shelter since he fears they will be euthanized. If shelter can be found for them, though, he has no problem taking them in.
`If you can find homes for them,` he said. `That’s fine with me.`
Executive Director of Animalkind, Inc., a no-kill animal shelter in Hudson, Katrin Hecker doesn’t see the feral cats as a problem. She said the main culprits are the irresponsible owners.
`Kittens from abandoned cats come from irresponsible owners,` she said. `These cats are the result of actions made by our own community members.`
Animalkind works to find an area where the cats will have shelter and food after they have been spayed or neutered and have received their rabies vaccination shots. She says that these cats are `here for a reason,` and that reason is to control the rodent population.
`If it wasn’t for feral cats, we’d have a rodent problem,` she said. `They create a buffer zone. If a rabid raccoon comes to a group of feral cats, the cats are vaccinated, so they won’t get rabies. They can erase the nuisance behavior.`
Hecker says Animalkind offers a low cost spaying and neutering program for $70. The city of Hudson has also created a spay/neuter fund that allows the shelter to provide services for free.
`It’s a wonderful concept because we’re attacking the problem at both ends` she said of the fund, which tackles the problem of irresponsible owners abandoning their cats without getting them fixed, thus, helping in controlling the population of the cats.
Shear said the state has a program for a low cost spaying and neutering that will be funded by surcharges placed on dog licenses. He said under the current state budget, the program will be run by a non-profit organization that has yet to be determined.
He acknowledged the idea of getting a cat licensed, but said he doesn’t think there would be enough money to fund such a program.
`I’m not sure how I feel about the idea because I don’t know how many people will get their cat licensed,` he said
“
