Letter to the Editor: Cat policy is needed

In response to Trudy McNair’s letter about the cat ordinance, I would like to add some important considerations. While I’ve “owned” and loved over a dozen house cats during my lifetime, I claim no special knowledge about feral cats. To clarify these issues I rely on research and the experience and wisdom of dedicated cat rescue volunteers who counseled me.

I agree with Ms. McNair’s Gandhi quote, “The level of civilization of a society is reflected in how its animals are treated” and that is exactly what underlies the ordinance. Cats are not the only animals we care about. Consider this quote from October’s Smithsonian Magazine article by Abigail Tucker:

“...it might come as a shock to some cat owners that the International Union for Conservation of Nature ranks house cats as one of the world’s 100 worst invasive species, making them an unusually glamorous addition to the icky litany of advancing fungi, mollusks, shrubs and other unwelcome beings.”

“One big reason for the house cat’s success is that it’s an unsurpassed breeder. Females reach sexual maturity at 6 months and thereafter reproduce more like rabbits ...—a key ecological advantage .... By one calculation, a breeding pair of cats could produce 354,294 descendants in five years...”

For many years the city and volunteers have practiced the “trap, spay, and neuter and re-release programs” you mention. The cat population continued to grow along with piles of trash left behind by these caring yet irrationally misguided cat lovers. We studied other options and the advice of dedicated cat rescue volunteers — also serious cat lovers — who spend thousands of hours actually implementing the programs you describe. They explained that people were the problem in Mead Botanical Garden. After years of explaining and pleading to no avail with people feeding the cats, people with a less myopic view were forced to take a stand to protect nature’s other animals. This nature center and birding site must be protected from this invasive species — the feral cat. If these same people want to feed the cats, they are free to do so in their own backyards. The experts explain that cats will move to the food! They will come back at night to empty the bird nests, but this ordinance at least makes them walk a bit.

During the two main bird migration seasons, the Orange Audubon Society volunteers lead free birding tours through the garden. How does it make sense for us to feed this invasive feral cat colony in the underbrush of a place that often hosts endangered birds? Again from Abigail Tucker’s Smithsonian article: “There’s a growing awareness that cats can drive extinctions.

… Bird lovers have long squawked about the house cat’s appetite. In 2013, Smithsonian and other government scientists released a report suggesting that America’s cats — both pets and strays — kill some 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds per year, making them the leading human-related cause of avian deaths. (And that’s not to mention the 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion mammals and untold millions of reptiles and amphibians cats also do away with.)”

I close by rearranging Ms. McNair’s well chosen words to emphasize a more discerning view: Letting feral cats live and kill in a natural botanic garden “is clearly cruel and misguided and offends every civilized, humane, and enlightened person in Winter Park and on this planet!”

“Clearly, the city (has finally adopted this ordinance to end) a barbaric, inhumane, and uncivilized policy” of hosting invasive animal killers in Mead Garden.

Onward,

Sue Foreman - A life-long cat lover AND nature lover