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Stray cat numbers rising locally

Photo provided by Dawn VerBerkmoes Meet Peppermint Patty, one of many current KSNAG resident felines looking for a loving home.

HOUGHTON — The Keweenaw Spay/Neuter Assistance Group (KSNAG), a 100% volunteer organization that offers financial assistance to spay/neuter for pet owners in need, has been experiencing and uptick in stray cat numbers.

“This fall and winter were the worst that I can remember for calls regarding cats outside,” or without homes, Dawn VerBerkmoes, a volunteer with KSNAG, said.

As to why there was a rise in stray cat numbers, VerBerkmoes explained that, “we weren’t sure why that happened in the beginning of COVID, in the spring of 2020, they noticed surgeries were deemed non-essential so they weren’t able to perform spay and neuter surgeries.”

“We are a financial assistance organization for pet owners that want to get their pets spayed and neutered and are unable to afford the cost. So I keep a list of people that are waiting, you know, and that we will financially assist with the surgery. And no one was able to go in from that list,” she said.

Spay/neuter surgeries have since resumed, but KSNAG reported still having 175 people on the list.

Bringing in stray cats for care has been an issue in itself.

“So what we were seeing in the fall and winter were mother cats, with their kittens, like three, four or five month old kittens. Well, by that time, if you don’t find them until the kittens are three or four months old, the kittens are usually wild,” VerBerkmoes said. “We were live-trapping these mother cats with their semi-wild kittens and having to work with them individually to try to get them to be adoptable. So it was really difficult, having so many coming all at once that needed individual work. And the other group of cats that we were seeing were un-neutered males.”

The process of live-trapping cats is a complicated endeavor. “Well, it’s hard, because you have to get permission from the property owner, someone might call and report cats living outside, but it’s not on their property. So we have to get permission from the property owner to set live traps,” she said, “and those traps have to be watched. You can’t just set the trap and go away and come back the next day, because if a cat goes into a trap, especially in the cold weather, you can’t leave them there for very long so we have to either have someone living nearby to check the jobs or we have to go back every hour to uncheck okay.”

A combination of spay/neuter surgeries being halted along with families’ personal funds being limited during the pandemic are seen as contributors to increased cat numbers.

Having an increased number of stray cats is a cat community health risk.

“Cats spread disease when they’re roaming outside. We have trapped cats that test positive for FIV, which is Feline Immunodeficiency Virus,” VerBerkmoes said. “It’s similar to human AIDS, but it’s feline AIDS.”

KSNAG sees a violent activity among cats as the biggest spreader.

“That (FIV) is spread to other cats through fighting, and as males fight a lot, and if one of them has FIV, they can spread it to other cats that they’re fighting with. You may have a cat that you let in and out. If an FIV positive cat is in a fight with your cat, and bites your cat, your cat will be infected. And as far as I know, there is no cure for it at this point,” VerBerkmoes said. Feline leukemia is another common disease for outdoor cats.

An influx of stray cats can also be damaging to small animal populations such as various breeds of birds.

“They do kill the birds and rabbits and other wildlife that live outside and people don’t like that,” she said. “We get a lot of calls from people that have bird feeders set up and say ‘there’s a stray cat in my yard that was killing the birds’ and they want us to come and do something.”

Outside of safely live-trapping cats and providing financial assistance for spay/neuter operations, KSNAG offers a multitude of other feline-friendly services.

“We pay the bills for bringing them all in to be tested for FIV and feline leukemia, vaccinated, spayed and neutered. You know, that sort of thing. Extra costs for feeding and everything for all these cats.” said Verberkmoes. “We Find places to hold these cats. We have foster homes, but they get filled up, and we find people to work with them one-on-one to get them to be adoptable.”

Finding homes for cats has been a major challenge.

“There aren’t enough homes,” she said. “That’s the bottom line. There are too many cats in the copper country, period. I mean, people just I don’t know, I don’t understand. I think a lot of people feel cats can just live outside and be on their own and everything will be fine, but cats can’t do that.”

Besides diseases, outdoor cats face a host of life threatening problems.

“Here, you know, we’ve taken in cats that have both severe frostbite on their ears, tail, paws, and a couple have had to have tail mutations,” she said. “We’ve had, I think, five cats that had to have leg amputation because they were hit by cars while roaming outside.”

VerBerkmoes said that without the volunteers in KSNAG and without the donations and support of the public, KSNAG would be unable to do what they do.

“We’d really like to thank the people that helped KSNAG,” said VerBerkmoes. “We have been overwhelmed with people donating pop cans, to donating food, and money especially during COVID. I think people might have realized that we’re not as able to be out in public and doing fundraisers that we normally do.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been changed from the original version that ran on April 15 on the front page of the Daily Mining Gazette. A first edit of the story was run, rather than the final version which appears here.

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