SPCA bills town $640 for trapping, neutering, releasing cats
The Ulster County SPCA has billed the town of Ulster $640 for trapping, neutering and releasing 16 cats as part of an effort to reduce the town’s feral cat population.
SPCA board President Gina Carbonari said an additional nine cats that were trapped in 2017 were kept by the agency and put up for adoption as part of an agreement with the town.
“This was a successful trapping operation, even though the residents aren’t necessarily going to be happy that the cats came back,” Carbonari said.
Carbonari said the bill clarifies the number of cats trapped by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals because a previous invoice created the incorrect impression that only one was cat was trapped.
“That ... created this kind of situation where there’s a perception that what we’ve been doing ... has not been successful when, in reality, it has been incredibly successful,” she said.
The town approved the trap-neuter-release after residents of the Fox Run/Sunrise Park area complained about odors from the cats.
Capturing feral cats — those that typically live outdoors, have little or no human contact and have not been spayed or neutered — was considered an alternative to adopting a town law that would have prohibited residents from allowing pets to become a nuisance to neighbors and from having property owners feed cats they do not own.
Of the 25 cats trapped in the town of Ulster by the SPCA, 18 were captured in May and seven in August. Estimates have put the total number of cats roaming the affected Ulster neighborhood at between 30 and 50.
Carbonari said the neutering program will lead to a gradual reduction in the cat colonies.
“That’s where you see that you have control over the population because new cats should not be coming into the colony,” she said. “If they do, it’s really more of a situation of maybe people dropping cats into the neighborhood, and I think maybe that’s the biggest problem that we have right now. There’s been such focus on this neighborhood that you may certainly have some individuals who see it has an opportunity to ... basically surrender their cat.”
Carbonari said cats kept by the SPCA for adoption were chose based on their ability to get along with people.
“An adoptable cat has to be a cat that obviously can acclimate to being in a home environment,” she said. “So it’s a cat that can handle being handled, that can be pet, it can be comfortable being inside a home and not stressed.
“A feral cat is not ever going to ever be able to adjust to that kind of a lifestyle,” she said.