Photo by Emily Featherston.
Feral cats congregate near plates of animal food.
When Cahaba Heights resident Scott Roby walks down his street, he doesn’t see squirrels or birds.
He sees cats.
The Cahaba Heights area has become the epicenter of a feral cat problem that has led the Vestavia Hills City Council to take action.
“It’s really taken on a life of its own,” Roby said.
During the past five years, Roby said he and his neighbors have been dealing with dozens of cats in and around their yards and even under their homes. He said he has had cats breeding and destroying ductwork under his house, and his neighbors have had trouble with smells from urine spray and feces.
Roby attributes the problem to two houses on the corner of Autumn Lane and Valley Park Drive. He said the houses appear to be abandoned and are surrounded by trees and shrubs.
“The cats live all through there,” he said. “It’s causing them to roam around our neighborhood.”
Roby said at around 5 p.m. each day, 20-25 cats gather near the houses waiting for a woman to feed them, then they will disappear again throughout the neighborhood.
“I see a different cat about every time I go by there,” he said.
And Roby isn’t the only Cahaba Heights resident who has noticed the cats.
Council member George Pierce said the city has been receiving complaints about the cats for a while, but in February the complaints began to increase. Despite efforts by the Police Department’s animal control officer, Jimmy Cleveland, reports of large numbers of cats and their effect on Cahaba Heights continued to come in.
“We had some merchants in the Cahaba Heights area that starting complaining,” Pierce said. “They were getting complaints from the health department concerning cats in their dumpsters.”
It was at that point, Pierce said, that Vestavia Hills Mayor Butch Zaragoza decided to put together a committee to get the problem under control.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
Officer Cleveland, City Manager Jeff Downes, Mayor Pro Tem Steve Ammons and Pierce met with representatives from the Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) and the Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic to better understand feral cats and the options the city had.
“They educated us,” Pierce said. “They were aware of the colonies that we were not aware of. We were all really surprised.”
Though they haven’t done a complete data count, the GBHS estimates there are at least three major colonies with more than 50 cats each in Cahaba Heights alone — a population that would only grow if left unchecked.
“It looks like a really high number,” CEO Allison Black Cornelius said, based on preliminary observations.
Feral cats differ from regular stray cats in several ways, Cornelius said.
First, feral cats are completely undomesticated and usually are not social toward humans.
“I’m not saying this is a universal truth, because there certainly have been feral cats that people have adopted, but if you come across a feral cat, you will know it,” she said.
She said the cats are often skittish, don’t like to be petted and can even hiss or scratch when cornered.
This, she said, can lead to a serious safety issue, with at least one recently reported case of a child getting badly scratched.
“Young children do not realize the difference sometimes between a feral cat and a domestic cat, so they will chase a feral cat or they will try to pet a feral cat,” she said, adding that the cats will often fight back, and most have not had rabies vaccinations.
OFFICIAL ACTION
When the committee was formed, Vestavia Hills had no formal ordinance related to feral cats or how to deal with them, leaving the committee unsure of how to proceed.
After multiple meetings and a public work session, the committee presented a proposal to the Council for a partnership with the GBHS to begin mitigating the problem as soon as possible.
The Council voted March 28 to allot $10,000 for a “limited” trap-neuter-release (TNR) program to begin as soon as possible.
Once implemented, cats will be trapped by GBHS staff and taken in for evaluation. Cats that are free of disease and major behavioral issues will be spayed or neutered, ear-tipped and vaccinated.
Cornelius said kittens and adult cats with the proper temperament would be put up for adoption.
“Our No. 1 goal would be to find them a permanent, safe home,” she said, adding she thinks many of the cats appear to be adoptable.
If the cats are not adoptable but are healthy, they will be returned to the wild.
This “limited” TNR program is different than a wholesale TNR program, Cornelius said, because they will not be indiscriminately returning cats to the area.
“When we say ‘limited’ what we mean is, we’re not just going to pick up every cat, spay and neuter them, and then turn around and release them despite their health assessment, despite everything else.”
Pierce said the Council wanted to move quickly toward this program, because the spring, especially the month of April, sees a high volume of cat reproduction.
Cornelius said, however, that she and the organization needed to wait until a comprehensive ordinance was put in place before beginning any work in the area.
The ordinance, which was passed on April 25, offered to the Council mirrors that of Mountain Brook’s, and not only permits and outlines how the city deals with the cats, but also makes it a misdemeanor to feed or otherwise abet feral cats.
“This is a two-part thing,” Pierce said. “First, we’ve got to get control of the cat population. We’ve got to start addressing the feral cat issue, but also we’ve got to create an ordinance.”
Ultimately, Pierce said that the city had to address the feral cat problem for the public’s safety.
“Our concern was for the public as a nuisance and a health issue,” he said, because feral cats are not treated for rabies and can be a threat to both residents and their pets.
Roby said he is also concerned about the safety aspect.
“If these are feral cats, we don’t want them to have diseases and pass diseases on to our children, on to our pets, to anything else,” he said.
Roby added that he and his neighbors are also concerned the cats are attracting coyotes to the area.
Now that the city is aware of the problem, Roby said he is glad to see the Council taking action.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “I think it’s well worth it, because I think it is a major problem in Cahaba Heights.”
Others, however, are less pleased.
CRITICS CONCERNED
Susan Schwartz, who is involved with a network of individuals who feed and care for feral cats around the area, said she and others are concerned that the ordinance will do more harm than good.
Schwartz said she is a supporter of the GBHS but thinks the current plan, as well as the ordinance, is counterproductive to the goal of helping the animals.
She said her main concerns are that the GBHS won’t be able to socialize the cats, and that more than anticipated would be euthanized for aggressive behavior that is mistaken for disease.
“The problem with feral cats is, they’re not socialized,” she said. “The minute they put them in the cage, they’re going to get stressed out, and they’re going to euthanize them.”
She said she is also concerned with the section of the ordinance that would outlaw caretaking of the cats that are returned to the area.
One thing both sides of the issue can agree on is that the best way to keep this kind of situation from coming up again is to make sure pet owners spay or neuter their pets.
“We have been trying forever to try to educate people on spay and neuter,” Schwartz said, and recommended those who believe the procedures to be cost-prohibitive to seek out various organizations that will treat pets for a reduced cost.
While education will help the problem in the long run, Cornelius said something needs to be done immediately.
“I’m really concerned that, if we don’t get in there and do this quickly there are going to be people who take this matter into their own hands,” she said, and said there has already been at least one instance of this occurring.
Pierce agreed, and said the city still needs to take action to mitigate the problem in the near future.
“It will not solve itself,” he said.
