Cat Fights

Whole Earth, Spring, 2001 by Mks

I grew up with cats who moved between indoors and outdoors at will. We lost some to cars, some got sick, others just disappeared. Cat litter made full-time indoor feline living an option. We keep ours inside all the time, neutered and vaccinated in case they get out (Salvador made a run for it during our last earthquake).

The always-indoors option has forced cat keepers to confront a dispute as hot (among cat lovers) as gun control. One side sees free-roaming cats as individual sentient beings, misunderstood and unfairly maligned, deserving respect and care. Another side sees wretched, disease-prone killing machines, endangering human health and cutting a swath through wildlife populations.

The dispute is big. Most cat counters estimate about 60 million "pet" cats in the US. One third (20 million) stay indoors; the rest are indoor/outdoor commuters. Another 60 million are strays (abandoned or lost) or feral (descendants of strays). That would make one Felis domesticus for every two Homo sapiens in the country.

"Cats, whether owned, stray, or feral, should not roam free!" says The American Bird Conservancy. Its Cats Indoors! program (see access) estimates that free-roaming domestic cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year.

On the other paw, Alley Cat Allies (ACA; see access) counters that such numbers are extrapolations from very limited data. ACA claims that feral cats mostly scavenge and hunt rodents; that the real enemies of wild bird populations are habitat fragmentation and pesticide use.

Indoors-only advocates argue that cats can catch (and sometimes transmit to humans) rabies, distemper, toxoplasmosis, and a host of other diseases. Roaming cats can clearly become neighborhood nuisances, hunting at the next-door bird feeder, digging up and doing it in gardens, and singing love songs into the night.

Recommending indoor living may be reasonable for pet cats, but what to do about the 60 million homeless? Organizations agree that their numbers should be reduced, and, when possible, they should be trapped, neutered, vaccinated, and placed in good homes. The fur flies over otherwise healthy cats deemed too "feral" to be placed. Two options polarize the cat-concerned: (1) trap, neuter, and release cats into `managed colonies'; or (2) eliminate colonies in a humane manner (a euphemism for another euphemism, euthanization).

ACA advocates Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) as the most humane and effective strategy. Outside the Whole Earth office, Wendy, a local resident, stewards a feral colony of ten to twenty. Her yodel calls her feline friends from low tree branches, the abandoned greenhouse, under the porch, and who knows where. She watches for new arrivals, which she catches, has neutered, and returns to the site.

TNR champions hope that, sans reproduction, colonies will wither through attrition. Opponents argue that colonies don't die out. Instead, new feral cats move in for the free food, which also attracts other predators and disease carriers. Colony stewards may get overwhelmed or move and abandon the colonies. And well-fed altered cats still kill birds and other wildlife.

Both sides marshal "experts"--animal control officers, veterinarians, researchers. Hissing and caterwauling are intense. TNR opponents say that feral cats lead "short, miserable lives." The San Francisco SPCA replies that feral cats often live long, healthy lives, especially when neutered and less inclined to fight. Besides, they add, "We don't think death is better than a less-than-perfect life. Many [other] animals ... face similar hazards ... yet we would never consider euthanizing them `for their own good.'"

"Indoors or outdoors?" is more than a personal preference question; Outdoor cats are part of the neighborhood's ecology. And the whole community has a stake when shelters, animal-control agencies, or governments mandate registration or feral cat eradication. It's a fight in which we all need to choose. -

WE thanks reader Maja Ramirez for sending us her article, "Get Cats Indoors," which was too long to use, but alerted us to this issue.

Cat Fight Access

Cats Indoors! American Bird Conservatory 1250 24th Street NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20037 202/452-1535, www.abcbirds.org /catsindoors.htm

A wealth of education materials, information for cat-ordinance campaigns, and advice on keeping indoor cats happy.

Alley Cat Allies (ACA) 1801 Belmont Road NW, Suite 201 Washington, DC, 20009 202/667-3630, www.alleycat.org

Access to humane traps, free or low-cost spay/neuter clinics, regional cat-rescue organizations, and videos and other material for making the TNR case to public policymakers.

Maddie's Fund 2223 Santa Clara Avenue, Suite B Alameda, CA 94501 510/337-8989, www.maddiesfund.org

Maddie's Fund is trying to build a no-kill nation and guarantee a loving home for all healthy dogs and cats. It offers grants to no-kill shelters that work with veterinarians, rescue groups, traditional shelters, and animal control agencies nationwide. For a list of no-kill shelters, see www.cherished moments, com/no-kill-animal-shelters-statelist.htm.