County littered with kitties
Southern Ontario region scrambles to rein in over 25,000 feral cats
The presence of tens of thousands of stray and feral cats has left a southern Ontario county facing a catastrophe.
There are more than 25,000 free-range cats in Norfolk County (population 63,000), south of Brantford on the north shore of Lake Erie, according to an estimate by the nearest humane society.
That isn’t as much of a problem for humans as it is for birds. Norfolk County is home to Long Point, a spit that juts out into Lake Erie and serves as a stopover for hundreds of species of migratory birds.
“If I were to pick one spot where you wouldn’t want the highest cat density in Canada, I’d probably pick Norfolk County,” said avian ecologist Ryan Norris of the University of Guelph.
Norfolk’s cat conundrum has reportedly pitted councillors on opposing sides of a debate about whether to trap, neuter and release the animals, or euthanize them.
“I’m sorry, I’m a bird fan,” Waterford councillor Harold Sonnenberg said earlier this year when the county was considering a cull, according to the Simcoe Reformer. “You’re releasing a cat into the wild to kill birds and I can’t handle that.”
It’s unclear how many birds fall prey to outdoor cats a year in Canada, but a 2013 study in Avian Conservation & Ecology estimated between 100 million and 350 million.
The county set aside $50,000 for a “feline control program” and put out a call for proposals in April. But the only submission, from the Simcoe and District Humane Society, was rejected on a technicality.
The proposal wasn’t properly sealed in two envelopes, as required, the county’s general manager, Chris Baird, explained.
The county hasn’t announced a new request for proposals, but has still earmarked the money for the cat program.
The Simcoe District and Humane Society says those funds are badly needed.
The society gets about 30 calls a day about a stray or feral cat, says its president Cathie Hosken. Almost 400 cats have been sterilized, treated and put up for adoption this year, she added. “Cats take up a huge amount of our resources.”
Stray cats are pets that have wan- dered away from home, while feral cats are those that spend most of their lives in the wild. Feral cats can form colonies numbering more than 100.
“Trying to domesticate a feral cat is nearly impossible because they have been roaming free their whole life, and if you try to confine them it creates quite a stressful environment for them,” Alison Cross, a spokeswoman for the Ontario SPCA, told The Canadian Press.
The agency loans out cage traps for volunteers to capture homeless cats and bring them in for spaying or neutering. It also works with a Toronto organization to offer training on how to care for feral cats as a colony manager.
In Norfolk, John Gudinskas’s fami- ly farm has come to house 48 cats despite his efforts to keep numbers down by spaying and neutering.
“It’s easy to say ‘put them down,’ but it’s very hard to do,” he said.
Sonnenberg, the county’s mayor and other councillors didn’t immediately respond to the Star’s requests for comment Tuesday.
If the county reconsiders euthanasia to solve its free-range cat problem, animal welfare advocates vow to put up a fight.
“Norfolk County would be known as the cat-killing capital of Canada,” said Sandi Fettes, of the volunteer group Norfolk PAWS (Providing Animal Welfare Services).
“That would look great in the tourism brochures.”