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With cats, when is it cruel to be too kind?

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published January 20, 2008

The topic today is feral cats. Society used to call them "stray" cats, but that implies they have a home to stray from.

What to do with feral cats turns out to be a real controversy. And as you will see, the Tampa Bay area is a perfect miniversion of the dispute.

Some folks ask: Why not just round up all the cats and kill 'em? Or send them to, you know, a Nice Farm Out in the Country?

The trouble with that approach, its critics say, is that it doesn't work. There will always be more cats than cat-catchers.

Besides, cats are really good at making replacement cats in a jiffy.

And so since the early 1990s, some cat advocates have supported a different approach known as "TNR," which stands for "trap, neuter and return." There was a conference in Tampa about it on Friday and Saturday.

This idea is that sterilized cats returned to a stable feral colony will keep out breeding rivals and newcomers, fight less, live longer and cause fewer nuisances. Ideally, a friendly human is monitoring and feeding the cats.

The Humane Society of Tampa Bay is enthusiastically behind TNR, and has received a grant from the national ASPCA for a trap, neuter and release program in Hillsborough County.

If you've got a cat problem, don't want to have them killed, and are willing to take a middle step, you can call the society at (813) 876-7310.

They lend you a trap (there's a refundable $50 deposit) and show you how to use it. You catch the cat, bring it in, have it sterilized and vaccinated for a bargain-basement $25, and return the animal to its colony.

(The only exception is if the cat is diseased, in which case it must be euthanized instead of being allowed to infect other cats.)

Sherry Silk, the society's executive director, told me TNR is a middle course between killing cats and just letting the nuisance get worse.

"We'll never be able just to euthanize our way out of this problem," she said. The society has 100 traps, almost all of which are in use at any given time.

Now, did I mention that returning cats to feral colonies is controversial?

Many bird lovers and nature groups are skeptical if not hostile toward TNR. After all, feral cats not only are predators of small birds, but also are competitors with larger birds for food supply and habitat.

Some ecologists and scientists are skeptical, too. The state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission describes cats as a "nonnative species" that should not be returned to nature.

Even some animal-rights folks are opposed to this program, on the grounds that returning cats to the outdoors condemns them to a harsher death than euthanasia.

While the Humane Society's program is being treated warmly by county animal officials in Hillsborough, Pinellas County is strongly opposed. You won't find any return programs operating there.

"The feral-cat folks are trying to stake the moral high ground," sighs Welch Agnew, Pinellas County's co-director of animal services. "But we care about the ecosystem, too."

I hope there is room for eventual compromise between cat advocates and their opponents. As long as the only choice is between killing them or doing nothing at all - well, what's a cat lover to do?

[Last modified January 19, 2008, 23:41:29]