… Feral cat colonies get thumbs up from county
Published 7:02 am Friday, September 11, 2015
- In this Feb. 6, 2013 photo, a feral cat eats cat food from a box left by a cat lover behind a grocery store in Key Largo, Fla. While hunters stalked the elusive Burmese python through large swaths of Florida's Everglades over the last month, state and federal wildlife officials set traps for other animals menacing native wildlife in a fragile ecosystem. The python gets all the attention in Florida's sometimes weird animal kingdom and it's accused of decimating the populations of native mammals in the Everglades, but wildlife officials say feral cats, black-and-white tegu lizards and Cuban tree frogs are some of the other invasive species that pose equally serious threats to imperiled native wildlife in the swamplands and neighboring habitats. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)
What are the commissioners going to do when these feral cats start to spread rabies? These cats are wild and can not be tamed.
— Ronnie Fulcher
Feral cat colonies cause all sorts of other costs: feces, urine, smell, noise, parasites, diseases, killing wildlife, injuring pets and humans, increases in nuisance wildlife attracted to the cat colonies or their food. Is No Pet Left Behind going to cover any of those costs?
Of course not. The county will, or more likely, private landowners unlucky enough to live near a feral cat colony will be left with the bills.
— Joshua Rose
Better add an education campaign about toxoplasmosis and its potential impact on human fetuses. If you are pregnant or trying to become pregnant this disease can be left in the soil when cats do their business. Be careful gardening and even when cleaning clothes that have dirt on them.
— Jeanine Joy
I would hope that would be part of pre-natal care advice from the doctor…whether a lady owned a cat and cleaned it’s litter box or worked outdoors.
— Patty Bishop
TNR (trap, neuter, release) is a wonderful program. It is good to have a care-giver that can provide food and oversee the future care of the cats.
— Nancy Kneessi
Feral cats should be euthanised, not released again. I’ve lived around feral cat TNR programs for decades and they do nothing but perpetuate the problems of feral cats. The deaths the feral cats suffer are horrible and the nuisance factor is high too.The cats decimate the local native small mammals, birds, lizards, frogs and anything that moves. Feeding cat colonies just makes the problems worse.
— Johanna Van de Woestijne