It’s all of the above —
and much more! It’s an estimated 500,000
(a half-million!) feral cats in New York City: homeless and hungry. Not owned by or living with people, these street
cats fend for themselves in all weather and for all food, water and doctoring
they may get. It’s a hard life for them,
and a much shorter one than domesticated cats usually experience.
Where did they all come
from? Why this seeming explosion in
feral cat colonies? Likely causes include (1) people adopted them during covid,
then couldn’t keep them; (2) besides a veterinarian shortage, fees of those
still in business have climbed; (3) once evictions resumed, economic help
petered out too – a painful double whammy.
Nor will “birders,” one group firmly against outdoor cats, help. And the city of New York just isn’t deeply
involved with the cats or their numbers so little is expected there either. Even though some areas can boast dedicated colony-caretakers who feed
and watch out for the cats, there are only so many of them and they can do only
so much.
However, as the media story
reports, one group has adopted “a somewhat radical idea” first developed in
England in the 1950s to deal with a feral cat problem: T. N. R., or Trap,
Neuter, Return. That revelation won’t
come as news to numerous New Jersey cat advocates, already practicing – and
preaching – TNR.
To them, TNR is the way to
steadily decrease outdoor feline numbers by sterilizing feral cats and
returning them to their colonies. Fewer
fertile felines means fewer kittens growing up to produce still more cats.
Note: Many of New York’s
“feral cats” don’t fit the literal description [“in a wild state,
undomesticated, unused to humans. . .”]. They may have been abandoned by their human“owners”
or carelessly “backyard-bred” by humans, then left on their own. For such reasons, the growing preference – at
least in this central NJ area – is to describe “ferals” as “community” cats and
hope their communities will take responsibility
for them.)
The
only bird feeder in town?
I’ve
heard about smaller birds “mobbing” bigger ones in air, aiming to drive them
away – and I recently witnessed “mobbing” at the bird feeder in my yard. Maybe it’s the most convenient food source, or
the only one around, since opinions vary about feeding birds beyond their major
time of need: winter.
So
now, birds queue up on the nearby arbor, fence or other perches on the
feeder itself. Then they demonstrate
great acrobatic skills to reach parts of the two suet cages hanging there:
upside-down woodpeckers snacking at the bottom of one and myriad others twirling
on different sides of the other. As the crowd grows, avian rumbles look possible and intimidating blue jays zoom back and forth.
Wanted: Humane travelers
Are you a “humane traveler”? Close encounters of the animal kind, and
photo ops with animals are two summer/vacation bad deeds to avoid. Animals involved with people in these
circumstances can experience chronic stress and fear – while the people, often
unsafe, can be hurt.
Sure, big-cat cub petting is
now illegal (in the US, that is), but now other animals are getting the
same treatment – after being captured in the wild and taken from their parents
too young, or bred in captivity for petting and photo purposes.
Plus, as we had long read
about baby elephants in circuses, and as still happens to Asian elephants so
people can ride or bathe them, their spirits are broken to prepare them for their
degrading lives-to-come.
Tiny animals living
peaceful lives also need travelers to look out for them. Think about seashells, which are often habitats
for sea creatures. Beachcombers are urged
to follow these guidelines from the NJ Sea Grant Consortium: Be sure that any shell you want to take with
you has no living (or dead)
creature still inside. Foul smells give away dead creatures you don’t
want to take home.
Take only a couple
specimens with you, leaving most shells for ecosystem use. Then, next time at the beach, recycle earlier beachcombing souvenirs.
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