Occasionally people ask why we are doing this. Some even go so far as to ask why we would be bothered. After all, they're just wild cats; they're such a nuisance. We take a deep breath and smile and think of this as one more opportunity to spread the word and educate those that maybe have never really stopped to consider the dilemma.
Consider why the cats are there in the first place. They or their ancestors were once companion animals and then were left to fend for themselves for a myriad of reasons. It can get complicated. At the worst end of the scale, these are the cats that were simply abandoned by their human caretakers, dropped off in some unknown location or merely left on the door step as the humans move to another residence; for no other reason than the cat being considered a disposable commodity. Certainly there are some who became lost and stray and were never reunited with their caretakers. There are those whose caretakers find themselves in dire straights and simply cannot care for them. We asked one such person why they wouldn't take the cat to the humane society in hopes of finding another home. The reply was terribly upsetting: they couldn't afford the fee and didn't know what else to do. We've even come across cases where an elderly person has died and the relatives that come in to settle the affairs put the cats outside thinking that 'they'll be just fine.'
The vast majority of these cats are not spayed or neutered so the numbers continue to mount. In our climate female cats can reproduce virtually all year round. You don't have to be a mathematician to figure out why we're in this crisis.........
Bottom line: the feral cat epidemic was born of human neglect. We as a society have to address and resolve the matter, one colony at a time.
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