The trouble with cats

Tabby on the prowl.

Photo by Jim Anderson

If you want to start a lively discussion at dinner parties, bring up the subject of free-roaming cats; it'll be almost as exciting as politics and religion.

Unfortunately, there are a huge number of cats roaming the wild places of the U.S. spreading disease and eating the wild things -- and Central Oregon is no exception.

Stray cats run off with my baby chicks, and I almost lost another this spring. I didn't witness the event, but my neighbor did and she chased the cat until it dropped my little chicky, and then returned it to me. The only thing I could do (legally) was live-trap the cat and take it to the Humane Society -- which was both time consuming and expensive.

Based on the data collected by Lynn Ouchida, Community Outreach Coordinator for the Humane Society of Central Oregon (HCCO), there may be as many as 20,000 feral cats in Deschutes County alone.

In one year HCCO receives over 1,300 stray cats, of which about 1,100 are either adopted or given to foster homes and volunteers. The balance is usually euthanized along with approximately 500 others they receive (annually) that are sick or otherwise unwanted.

Most counties in Oregon have a "leash law" which protects wildlife and livestock from free-roaming dogs. However, unlike dogs, cats do not have to be licensed and are therefore exempt from such laws. And therein lies the rub...

David Pimentel of Cornell University says there is no question that domestic cats are killers -- and costly ones at that. A recent study of his found that cats kill about $6 billion worth of birds each year! By his calculations, that's 200,000 birds every year at about 20 bucks a pop.

"And it's not only birds. It's also squirrels, chipmunks and things like that," Pimentel says. "I was talking to a friend last week and his pet cat, in a 10 year period, killed 143 squirrels."

Pimentel minces few words when summing up the impact of free-roaming house cats. "I just don't think they are a real benefit to the environment. Very frankly, they're a pest, similar in a way to rats and feral dogs."

In some parts of rural Wisconsin, however, where cats are unlicensed and unmanaged, densities of free-ranging cats reach 114 cats per square mile. They are more abundant than all mid-sized native predators -- foxes, raccoons, and skunks --combined.

In Florida free-roaming cats are responsible for the near demise of an endangered mouse that lives only in the coast sand dunes.

For thousands of years humans have intentionally bred cats for their skill at killing mice, rats, birds, snakes and other dangerous or destructive animals.

And long before we humans got into the business of natural selection, Mother Nature was breeding cats to kill for a living.

However, scientists are fighting back in some places. Right now, the best hope lies with a cat virus that won't kill the animals, but instead will leave them sterile. In the meantime, traps, euthanizing, poisons and shotguns are used to keep down the huge numbers of feral cats.

But killing loose cats won't work in Oregon. Cats are considered personal property, and according to Lynn Ouchida, no matter how pestiferous a stray cat may be, it is illegal to harm it. To do so would put a person cross-ways with the animal cruelty laws -- even if the cat is caught in the act of killing protected wildlife, such as sagebrush lizards and native birds, or your baby chickens.

But then again, it's also against the law to abandon a cat (or dog) and force the animal to fend for itself. A dog may not make it, but cats are resourceful and most often succeed at "living off the land."

Unlike some predators, a cat's desire to hunt is not suppressed by adequate supplemental food. Even when fed regularly at home, a cat's motivation to hunt remains strong when released to roam in the backyard.

Ken Ehlers of Sisters suggests the formation of a non-profit 501-c-3 tax-free organization that he calls the "Feral Cat Emergency Action League."

Ehlers believes that such an organization can then collect financial donations and use the money to help educate cat owners and establish a county cat licensing law to "help protect our Central Oregon native bird and animal populations."