COURT HOUSE – Feral cats are ubiquitous across Cape May County’s many municipalities. Dozens of feral cats stalk the Wildwood Crest dunes, and feral cat colonies call the county home from West Cape May to Woodbine.
Peter Mara, Ph.D., former director of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and author of “Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer” from Princeton University Press, said in an interview with the Herald that the county’s inaction on feral populations is devastating to local bird populations.
Concerns that feral cats pose a threat to rare seabirds rose to the level of federal intervention in 2008 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sought to ban feral cat colonies within a mile of protected beach land in accordance with the federal Endangered Species Act to save birds like the piping plover from cat-related injury.
However, locals involved with “trap, neuter, release” programs and local animal control experts say that the problem is getting better, and the cats have greatly declined in numbers.
What Do the Numbers Say?
Mara has been involved with many prominent studies on the consequences of feral cats on local animal populations. A 2013 national study he co-authored estimates that between 1.3 and 4 billion birds are killed by free-ranging cats each year.
The number is even higher when mammals are considered. The study estimates that number to be between 6.3 and 22.3 billion mammals killed each year by free-roaming kitties.
The study claims that cats are not just a problem for vulnerable bird populations: They are “likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals.”
These problems are especially bad, Mara said, on islands like the Wildwoods and Cape May. He pointed to the study, which says 14% “of the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions” are caused by free-ranging cats. An outsized number of these extinctions are colony nesting seabirds, a federally protected population that famously migrates through and nests in Cape May County.
However, local numbers are difficult to quantify. Mara has spent a lot of time in Cape May County, but there has been no formal study conducted on the exact impacts that feral cats have on the county’s bird populations.
Mara, who interviewed with the Herald days after returning from a cat study on an island abroad, calls the local cat problem “absurd.”
He said that the county represents “a mecca in many ways for birders and for the birds themselves. In that sort of place, you don’t want outdoor cats. You don’t want them anywhere, but especially in a place like Cape May, where you have such a vulnerable bird population. I go there and look for birds. I don’t go there to look for cats.”
What Are the Solutions?
Cats reproduce quickly, have few natural predators, and sit atop local food chains in places where, had humans not introduced them, they would otherwise not exist. Mara suggests a solution to this problem, especially on islands, is to target and euthanize wild cats so they cannot multiply.
Mara says that this is a moral duty to which humans, who introduced cats where they do not naturally exist, must rise. He said that “euthanasia has worked very well in multiple island situations,” where cat populations posed a serious threat to wildlife.
The more popular trap, neuter, release (TNR) programs are half-measures that do little to curb cat populations long-term, he said.
Mara understands that this is an uncomfortable proposition to repair fragile ecosystems.
“It’s a very difficult situation,” he said. “There’s no question about it. Nobody likes the idea of what we have to do, which is cat euthanasia. Cats are not native to the landscape there. They are predators, and they have been left to breed, and they breed prolifically.”
Nothing so drastic as mass euthanasia is happening at a local level, but TNR is practiced by many municipalities in Cape May County, as well as the county’s animal shelter.
Who’s Involved?
Linda Gentille, the owner of Shore Animal Control, a group responsible for animal control in Upper and Lower townships, Woodbine, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, North Wildwood, Stone Harbor, and Cape May, said in an interview with the Herald that TNR has been highly effective in reducing the county’s feral cat population since the group began working here six years ago.
Gentille said that these policies have been “very effective because they stop the cycle of kittens being born. We’ve seen a great reduction in complaints from all over the county in all the towns we service versus when we took over six years ago in the Crest. Before we took over, the problem was much, much worse.”
She said that Wildwood Crest’s dune cats are all fixed and unable to reproduce. She reported similar success in Woodbine, Wildwood, and Lower Township.
One of the biggest indicators of a cat problem is an abundance of stray kittens, Gentille said. A great indicator that the policy is working is that “complaints of calls about kittens have decreased 70% in the past five years,” Gentille said.
Wildwood Crest Commissioner Joseph Schiff, who oversees public safety, said in a brief phone interview that the Crest does not have any current plans to deal with its feral cats outside of its contract with Shore Animal Control.
Gentille said that euthanasia is entirely unnecessary in most cases. She said that a widespread euthanasia practice will foster a negative relationship between locals and animal control groups, ultimately making the cat problem worse.
“People might otherwise not call us because they think the cats are going to be euthanized. Then they would become underground feeders and breeders. That’s all across the U.S. But once they call us, or the shelter, if the cats are adoptable, they give them the chance to have a life versus living on the streets and multiplying,” she explained.
Gentille personally manages a feral cat colony in Upper Township.
“I’ve never seen one of those cats kill a bird,” she said. “The birds actually eat the cat food. Well-maintained cat colonies are not a huge problem for the birds.”
Beyond Shore Animal Control, the Cape May County Animal Shelter is highly involved with TNR policies on a large-scale across the county. They trap over 200 cats each year and help fund TNR for individuals willing to do the work themselves.
Marie Bulwin, a long-time volunteer at the shelter, is highly involved with the trapping of wild cats. She believes that TNR is a meaningful long-term solution to the problem and says that TNR can keep local bird populations safe without killing cats.
Bulwin said the shelter spays or neuters about 100 cats a week.
Other groups, including Sea Isle Cats, in Sea Isle City, and Animal Alliance, in Court House, work through TNR programs to reduce the overabundance of island-dwelling feral cats.
What Do Locals Say About the Cats?
Locals from many different municipalities spoke with the Herald about cat enclaves near them, and many corroborated the experiences of Bulwin and Gentille, who said that cat colonies are on the decline, at least for now.
Deirdre Lynn, a North Cape May resident, said that she inherited a feral cat colony when her neighbors moved away.
“They were all fixed, but feral and unapproachable, and we fed them and sheltered them until they slowly died off,” she said.
Luann Wercoch, a former volunteer with Animal Alliance, reported a cat colony in Middle Township’s Grassy Sound.
“We had a big colony in Grassy Sound for over 20 years. Unfortunately, they have all died or were hit,” he said.
Others complained about stray cats in Avalon, Lower Township, and Wildwood, where cats are often fed en masse by neighbors.
What Can the Public Do About the Cats?
Gentile stressed that stray kittens should be reported immediately to animal control or a shelter. The Cape May County Animal Shelter does everything in its power to rehabilitate feral cats and send them out for adoption. Kittens will be spayed or neutered to ensure they do not multiply rapidly, but they will not be killed.
“The idea is to report kittens immediately when you see them, but a lot of people think they’re cute and instead of calling and reporting it when they can be socialized, often people will wait until they’re feral. That makes the problem much worse,” Gentille said.
Bulwin urges owners to keep their cats inside. The lifespan of an outdoor cat is less than that of indoor cats.
There is “nothing good out there for them,” Bulwin added. “They have everything they need inside. It’s very dangerous for them out there.”
Push and Pull
Though most experts agree that cats should be kept inside whenever possible, deep disagreements about the solution persist.
Judith Davies-Dunhour, shelter manager at the county animal shelter and mayor of Stone Harbor, says that mass euthanasia is not a realistic solution to the problem. She said the current reality of feral cats in the county is “not the best-case scenario,” but that the policies in place are meaningful and help keep the number of feral cats down.
The animal shelter relies on community support, much of which would evaporate if the county started mass killing cats.
“We are not in this business to kill healthy animals,” she said. “Instead, we try to make the biggest impact to spay and neuter, and when you do that, you get the support of the community. You get donations. When you are a shelter with a high euthanasia rate, you don’t get support from your community. You have a high staff turnover. You literally are spinning your wheels.”
Even if the shelter were to adopt a euthanasia policy, Davies-Dunhour said that ‘breeders and feeders’ would worsen the problem in secret.
“If those folks think you are going to trap them and kill them, they are not going to work with you,” she said. “It’s an exercise in futility. You need their cooperation to make a difference.”
Cat feeders, under the current shelter leadership, largely trust the shelter to humanely treat their beloved cats. Without those lines of communication, the shelter would no longer receive information from the public about stray cat enclaves.
Davies-Dunhour agrees that feral cats kill many birds and mammals but points to a wider philosophical dilemma about human responsibility in relation to those ecosystems.
“We have destroyed so many ecosystems,” she said. “Man gets to choose what lives and dies, and in this case, some birders say the birds are more important than cats, and cat lovers say cats are more important than birds. Who gets to choose?
“When we put in roads, build houses, build freeways, and destroy ecosystems, all those birds are displaced just the same, so us cat people say that we understand it’s not the best-case scenario, but we are doing our very best to deal with reality.”
She said that local numbers of captured animals have remained steady for many years, and the number of pets who get spayed and neutered has likewise increased significantly. The shelter has many more services to deal with cats than it did a decade ago. These policies, over time, create an environment where spaying, neutering, and microchipping are the norm. Though it isn’t ideal, she believes that the shelter’s TNR policies are significantly better and more realistic than any alternatives.
Despite local numbers, including the 70% reduction in kitten reports cited by Shore Animal Control, there is no bigger-picture study in Cape May County about the effects of feral cats. On top of this, the fact remains that billions of animals, including many vulnerable shore birds, are killed by outdoor cats each year in the U.S. alone.
Anecdotes from shelters, Shore Animal Control, and locals give room for optimism, but the long-term future of the county’s feral cats is uncertain. In the meantime, many hard-working groups are doing their best to stem the tide.
To contact Collin Hall, email chall@cmcherald.com.
