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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Stretched across the sun-baked walkways of this city's walled colonial fortress, the cats of Old San Juan long ago became icons, their feline faces splashed across the pages of tourist brochures and coffee mugs.
But the feral creatures are in danger of becoming another faded memory in this city of blue cobblestone streets and pastel-colored mansions built by Spanish colonizers.
The U.S. National Park Service in Puerto Rico has announced plans to trap the estimated 200 street cats and deliver them to animal shelters, provoking outrage among animal activists who say most would be euthanized.
"They face certain death," said Lisa Gelabert of Save a Gato, one of the groups leading a campaign and petition drive in this U.S. Caribbean territory. Gato is Spanish for "cat."
The National Park Service, responsible for maintaining the walkway below the walls of San Felipe del Morro fortress, says the cats - and the cat food some residents drop along the pathway - have created a mess and present a health hazard.
"There have been numerous complaints from residents and tourists about the urine smell, feces and about the throwing of cat food on the walkway," said Park Service superintendent Walter Chavez.
About 40 people watched last week as the Roman Catholic Rev. Jaime Casillas recited the Lord's Prayer and blessed the cats with holy water at the seaside promenade that hugs the fort.
Activists want to trap, sterilize and release the cats according to a plan they say is proven to control stray populations. They say it would cost about $25 for each cat, and they have collected more than $1,700 in donations. It normally costs about $50.
Whispered rumors abound among locals on the streets of Old San Juan.
Some say they've heard authorities have begun to secretly poison the cats. Others claim domestic cats are disappearing.
"I would propose killing all the cats," said Freddy Diaz, 46, who owns a restaurant next to a doorway where a woman regularly feeds stray cats.
Chavez had proposed letting 25 cats remain, but the activists say that number is unacceptable and they plan to hold an adoption rally to find homes for about 30 kittens and healthy cats.
Officials had planned to start trapping the cats early this month. On Friday, however, they met with cat advocates and agreed to a four-month moratorium while activists identify sick cats and sterilize the healthy ones, whose ears will be clipped to identify them.
Then the two sides will negotiate how many cats will be able to remain. Save a Gato took a lawyer to the meeting and threatened to file for an injunction before the agreement was reached, said Sylvine Sherwood, Save a Gato president.
The furor arose after the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service did an environmental assessment and issued a 65-page report citing health risks for humans from stray cats, including ringworm, cat scratch fever and toxoplasmosis.
Toxoplasmosis - a common infection caused by a parasite and transmitted by bites or scratches - can cause fatal complications in human fetuses and people with compromised immune systems. It is rarely fatal in healthy adults.
Cat scratch fever can cause sores, blisters, swollen lymph nodes, high fever and encephalitis.
Cat advocates want to promote the strays as a tourist attraction, as they are in Rome and at Ernest Hemingway's home in Key West. They propose installing food receptacles at the base of the fort.
"They're cute," tourist Mike Flynn, a 58-year-old economist from Danville, Calif., said during a stopover on a cruise.
But even cat lovers are sometimes annoyed by the unwelcome presents - feces, dead birds and lizards - left on streets, cars and in open-air apartments into which the street cats stray.
Activists say most of the cats are healthy and have identified about 10 that are visibly sick and need to be put down.
They say the cats help prevent illness in humans by controlling rodent populations, especially rats. A previous attempt at cat extermination, they say, led to a 1912 bubonic plague outbreak caused by an exploding rat population.