Stray cats overrun Ranch Cordova Park
By ersmommy1
@ersmommy1 (12587)
United States
April 8, 2008 5:49am CST
A growing number of stray cats are appearing in a park, and residents are divided on how to deal with them. Some residents want Animal Control to capture the felines, but other residents protest, calling that option a "death sentence" for the animals.What would be your solution to this?
3 people like this
5 responses
@sherrir101 (3670)
• Malinta, Ohio
8 Apr 08
There are no great solutions for this problem. Over the winter, our trailer park has went from 3 stray cats to over 12 stray cats. There are no laws to help a person with an stray cat. There are no laws for outside cats, like the leash law for dogs. In our county, they will pick up a stray dog, but not a cat. If you catch it yourself, they will take it at the shelter. We have made so many phone calls for this problem and the only thing is to have them do a live catch and take them to a shelter or put up with them.
1 person likes this
@stephcjh (38473)
• United States
8 Jun 08
I'm not sure how to deal with them either. We have alot of problems with stray dogs and cats in our area also. We do not have any kind of animal laws here. We don't even have an animal control either. I have had dogs and cats dig the screens off of both of my outside doors. It is awful that we cannot do a thing about it either.
@FaerieAne2003 (679)
• United States
8 Apr 08
Except that stray cats are not vaccinated and are known to carry rabies, feline leukemia virus, toxoplasmosis, feline enteritis (just to name a few), not to mention the flea and tick population that would make it unbearable for humans to be in that park with the cats. Ear mites are also a problem, because left untreated, they breed and grow colonies of their own in cats' ears, and being very painful and itchy, make the cats quite irritable. Stray cats are not housecats. A local city park is not a cat rescue farm. Rescue groups keep their cats vaccinated and healthy, and place them with adoptive families. I'm reasonably certain that a city is not going to want to pay for vaccines and ear wash for a bunch of strays in a park with the taxpayers' dollars. By law and by rights, Animal Control is required to step in and take the animals. For larger groups of animals, they typically send them to a rescue center, so that they don't have to pay overtime to the employees that would otherwise have to put the animals down, or house the animals in already-overcrowded shelters. Win-win.
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (64169)
• United States
8 Apr 08
Farie - if you take out one colony of feral cats, another colony starts. If you leave an intact colony in place, but fixing them, giving them at least one round of rabies shots, then new cats are less likey to move in and start it all again.
This is a PROVEN fact.
