Sunday, September 10, 2006
The stray cats have to go
Christian Trejbal
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Montgomery County is infested. My neighborhood is infested. My yard is infested. There are stray cats everywhere, yet the county does nothing.
The scuzzy things -- all cats are scuzzy, my mother taught me -- strut around my yard like they own the place. Three adults, maybe more, and three kittens.
Cute as buttons and all that, just terribly unfriendly. No ammount of finger twitching and "Here kitty, kitty" keeps them from running away.
They have to go.
My two cats, Snorri and Inque, are trapped in the house. They sit in windows peering at their feral brethren, occasionally hissing at the trespassers.
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I won't let them outside with the strays because they are wimps. The only time either caught something was when Inque found some baby birds in a nest. They wouldn't stand a chance against wild beasts with claws, fangs and territory to protect,
The strays have to go.
I called the Humane Society of Montgomery County about dropping them off.
There is no room at the inn.
"Because of our no-kill status, we can only house what we have room for," said Jamie Burton, the shelter manager.
The society can house about 50 to 60 cats, and it is always full, running a lengthy waiting list for drop-offs.
Operating on private donations and support, the Humane Society, like nearly every such organization around the country, does great work helping animals in need, but it was not going to solve my cat dilemma.
Next up was the county's animal control office.
"Montgomery County does not provide the services or facilities to accommodate cats," the recorded message told me.
Say what? They control animals. Cats are animals. They control cats. It's a syllogism that would satisfy any medieval logician.
Harvey Waddell, the chief animal control officer, explained that the county has not invested in facilities to house cats. State law says that animal control offices may take in cats; they do not have to.
Even if it did handle cats, my situation would still be tough. Because the county has no cat tag law, I'd have a hard time proving to animal control officers that a cat is a stray and not some neighbor's wandering feline.
"So," I asked Waddell, "what's the solution? Those cats have to go."
"As far as I know, there is none," he answered. There's no legal means of getting rid of unwanted scuzzes.
State law, according to Waddell, forbids people from capturing cats and abandoning them across town. Nor can citizens just kill strays, not that I would have the stomach for that.
I desperately searched for a third opinion and found the Animal Welfare Foster Program in Blacksburg.
Veterinary students at Virginia Tech run the program, though it is unaffiliated with the university. They spay or neuter, check for disease and put cats and dogs in foster homes until someone adopts them.
The number of foster parents fluctuates seasonally because many are students. Typically, according to Alisha Oehling, one of the vet students with the group, they have 20 to 30 dogs and cats at any time. In the two years the program has existed, it has adopted out more than 150 animals.
Their list of available pets, pictures and all, is online at www.petfinder.com/shelters/awfp.html.
I contacted Anna Barnes, the group's acting president, with my cat conundrum. Maybe the scuzzes would not have to take a one-way trip after all.
Barnes replied that strays as unfriendly as mine would not work in their foster homes.
Strike three.
Feral cat populations are not unique to the New River Valley, but the negligence that lets the problem fester is distressingly unusual. Strays will not just disappear if we try to ignore them.
"There's a very, very large feral cat population in Montgomery County because none of the offices and humane societies will take them in," the foster program's Oehling said. She estimates they number in the hundreds, maybe more.
Organizations such as the Humane Society and the foster program cannot solve the problem alone. Already they are overburdened.
Unless the county board of supervisors acts, stray cats will continue to devour birds, fight with pets, spread diseases and make more little scuzzy things.
To start, require tags so people can differentiate between strays and cats with homes. Then invest in the facilities to house cats and direct the animal control office to get catching. Government exists to tackle just this sort of communitywide problem, not to slough it onto nonprofits.
As for my strays, I refuse to accept that they are here to stay and that I can do nothing. If I break out the trap, I run the risk of having the animal control police on my tail. Not a welcome situation, but those cats have to go.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times, based out of the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
