Feeding feral cats is cruel

I have been following recent newspaper articles and letters to the editor about feral cat colonies with some dismay. These discussions seem mostly limited to issues of the feral cats' individual welfare and "humane" treatment, while not sufficiently considering the whole picture — which includes human health and native wildlife conservation.

Although Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) advocates and feral cat colony maintainers have admirable sympathies for fellow creatures (feral cats), I wonder where their sympathy is for the vast number of native creatures that non-native feral cats kill or maim? Where is their sympathy for the children who are at risk of contracting injury, diseases or parasites from roaming feral cats?

In order to return the debate to its proper scope, I offer the following facts. It is virtually impossible to annually capture and vaccinate all members of significant feral cat colonies. This is because after the first time or two they are captured, feral cats tend to avoid traps. It is also due to other causes — including the roaming tendencies of tomcats, as well as the difficulty of capturing some wary individuals even for the first time. For similar reasons, it is also very difficult to capture and spay/neuter 100 percent of the feral cats at any given colony, especially before they reproduce. Feral cat colonies pose human health risks. They are what epidemiologists call "disease reservoirs" — the colonies harbor diseases in unvaccinated members over the long term. Members of feral cat colonies spread diseases and parasites via bites, scratches, and fecal contamination (of beach sand, children's sandboxes, vegetable gardens, and flower beds to name a few vectors). Such diseases and parasites include rabies, toxoplasmosis, roundworm, hookworm, and others. Feral cats also harbor and spread fleas and ticks.

These are some of the reasons S.C. law says, "if you feed a feral cat, you are responsible for vaccinating it." Similarly, the U.S. Navy has forbidden the feeding and maintenance of feral cat colonies on all Navy installations in order "to prevent injury or disease to Navy personnel, and eliminate adverse impacts on native wildlife." If you have a feral cat colony being maintained next door, you and your children are at increased risk for being bitten by rabid animals (either feral cats or the wild animals they infect). By comparison, the Centers for Disease Control recently announced that canine rabies has been virtually eliminated in the U.S. by vaccination programs, licensing, and stray dog control — as opposed to allowing people to maintain feral dog colonies. If similar actions were taken regarding feral cats, the public health and wildlife benefits would be enormous.

TNR does nothing to protect native wildlife from the harm caused by feral cats. Even well-fed and spayed/neutered feral cats still have a terrible effect on our native wildlife, which lack evolutionary measures to protect against these non-native predators. Local populations of native birds like Painted Buntings, Common Ground-Doves, and Chuck-will's-widows (to name but a few) can be decimated by feral cat colonies. Local populations of small reptiles and amphibians also suffer terribly due to well-intentioned people artificially maintaining feral cat populations.

Leaving food out for feral cat colonies invariably provides food to raccoons. This artificially enhances and attracts raccoon populations, increasing the risk of human exposure to rabies, raccoon roundworm (a fatal disorder) and other ailments.

Feral cat colonies in beachfront areas are especially harmful to human health and wildlife. In such settings, children digging and playing in the sand are at increased risk of contracting diseases or parasites.

Beach-nesting and roosting birds are especially vulnerable to feral cats. To date, there is no scientific proof that TNR reduces the number of feral cats in an area. It is not feasible to perform TNR on the millions of feral cats in the U.S. or the tens of thousands of them in the Lowcountry. Therefore, TNR is not a feasible solution to the feral cat problem.

In light of these proven detrimental effects to humans and native species (that belong here and our ecosystem depends upon), feral cat colonies should not be fed and maintained. Feral cats that are captured should not be released. They should either be adopted and then kept indoors, or painlessly euthanized.

Nathan Dias is executive director of Cape Romain Bird Observatory.