By Seth DuChene
Editor
Heather Patterson and Donna Cowie Ducharme say they’re on the front lines of a battle many people have no idea is happening: that is, keeping up with growing number of feral cats in the region.
Both Patterson and Ducharme compose the ‘Crazy Cat Trappers’ behind The Forgotten Ferals; their spare time away from their day jobs is spent trapping feral cats, having them spayed or neutered and releasing them back into the ‘wild’ or, if possible, finding them new homes. But despite their efforts and the efforts of other animal organizations, they’re finding it impossible to keep up with the ever-increasing number of stray cats inundating the area.
There are a few factors at play, they say, one of which is the fact that cats can reproduce at a prodigious rate. One fertile female cat introduced into an area can produce as many as 225 descendants in only two years, says Ducharme. “Every female can have 18 kittens a year, and then for every female kitten she has, they’re having 18 kittens a year,” Patterson adds.
And as feral cats continue to reproduce, there’s always a steady stream of new non-sterilized cats being introduced in broader community by pet owners who are either unable or unwilling to care for the animals.
“It seems to be a never-ending project, not only in Napanee but everywhere. We’ve been trying to help (other organizations), we know that everybody is kind of working on it, to clean up Napanee, but as fast as we can trap and afford to fix them… there are more litters born. It’s a cycle,” said Patterson.
Although local residents might not notice the abundance of cats in the community, the pair says they’re being contacted by business and industry owners who have discovered feral cats on their property. “The only people who know they’re out there are the industries who are finding them under their (equipment) and calling us and saying ‘there are cats under here,’” says Donna.
Compounding it all, they add, is that they’re only two people, and they receive no financial support for their efforts outside of what they can fundraise — that is, when they’re not working, trapping cats or taking them to vet appointments. “It’s $250 a cat, roughly, to have them fixed, vaccinated, de-wormed and de-fleaed, and that’s at a reduced rate. We can’t possibly fundraise enough to keep up with the population in Napanee. We can’t trap fast enough and get them fixed fast enough before there’s more born,” says Patterson.
The pair have feral cat ‘colonies’ of felines who have already been trapped and fixed. While some might expect that feral cats are able to find their own food sources, Patterson and Ducharme say that the animals are generally malnourished or sick from eating what they can find or catch. As such, they feed the cats at these colonies on a regular basis — at a cost of about $1,000 a month.
They keep the locations of these colonies secret so to dissuade people from attempting to leave their unwanted domestic cats at these locations, where interactions between domestic and feral cats can be brutally violent.
As costs and the number of cats mount, the pair are in the process of appealing to local municipalities to help fund their effort to manage the feral cat population. “It’s everywhere, and the funding isn’t there. If the community would come on board and just help us, once they’re spayed and neutered, the problem is going to eventually go away. If they can’t reproduce, their average lifespan is two to five years… let them live out their life, and then it would be controlled,” says Ducharme
“Because there are so many of them and they’re malnourished, they’re interbreeding. You can end up with disease — some of them are contagious to people. Do we really want that?” she adds.
Patterson says they hope to make formal presentations to Greater Napanee and other communities in the near future.
“People just don’t know. You drive through Napanee, it’s a pretty town, you can see the water and the pretty downtown. People have no idea what happens behind the businesses and in the industrial parks,” Patterson says.
Those interested in supporting The Forgotten Ferals can contact Patterson at 613-888-4468 or Ducharme at 613-305-2908, or email them at the forgottenferals@outlook.com.
The group also has a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/groups/316959905386341/.