Creature Feature: Born To Be Wild(cats)

As he's been doing for the past 11 years, Herb Fischer of Montauk feeds the cats at 8:30 every morning. They are awaiting him and, with the aptly named Underfoot, a tiger- striped female, weaving perilously around his feet, the cats escort him to their feeding stations. But the cats that Mr. Fischer feeds so faithfully do not belong to him; they are feral cats that belong to no one.

Cats are now the most popular pet in the United States. There are an estimated 64 million of them living in American homes. Sadly, the estimate of the number of cats without homes - feral cats - is almost as high. Some experts place it at just under 60 million.

Some of these feral cats can be found on the East End. Helena Curtis of the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons said, "It's a very difficult problem. In my opinion it goes back to individual people not spaying or neutering their pets."

Too Wild For ARF

Louise Nielsen of Montauk, who has been involved in feral cat issues for over 20 years, says with some despair that, despite the considerable and commendable efforts on the part of ARF to make low-cost spaying and neutering available to cat owners, the feral cat problem continues unabated.

"I know people find it very frustrating when they call ARF to tell us that there are feral cats in their backyards and find out that we aren't able to take them," said Ms. Curtis. But ARF is unable to take on a true feral (as opposed to an abandoned or lost house cat) for a number of reasons, she explained.

Feral cats are extremely wild. As they have never been handled or confined, they react with considerable ferocity when such liberties are attempted. A cat bite is a serious matter. "Cat bites are very toxic. We worry a lot more about cat bites than dog bites," said Ms. Curtis.

Short Life Spans

With the exception of very young kittens, feral cats are not adoptable. Though the occasional adult can be tamed, it is a long, time-consuming endeavor that most prospective pet owners have no interest in. If ARF were to take these animals, the vast majority of them would spend the remainder of their lives in cages. Not a solution anyone would prescribe, least of all the cats.

Some people choose to romanticize these animals. They see them as the essence of independence, reverting to a wild state that is somehow more honorable than the life of a house cat.

But cats are domestic animals, however much they may appear to insist otherwise! And a closer look at the "independent" life of a feral cat reveals a bleak picture. Experts estimate the average life span of a feral cat to be three years. Many die before they're a year old.

Deromanticized Reality

"I don't think people would romanticize them if they saw kittens, their eyes stuck shut with mucus, sputtering and spitting from respiratory infections or distemper," said Ms. Curtis sharply.

Cats are domestic animals, however much they may appear to insist otherwise. A closer look at the "independent" life of a feral cat reveals a bleak picture.

Respiratory infections and distemper are just two of the many health hazards that afflict feral cats. Dr. Mark Davis of the South Fork Animal Hospital, who has dealt with hundreds of feral cats while participating in the ARF spaying and neutering programs, estimates that fully 50 percent of these animals are infected with the feline leukemia virus.

This virus is the agent of the most prevalent of fatal infectious diseases in American domestic cats. It is easily spread among feral cats and also to any house cats they come in contact with. Fortunately, there is a preventive vaccine for FeLV, which pet cats that have access to the outdoors and may be exposed to infected animals should receive.

New Disease

Feline immunodeficiency virus is a relatively new disease that has been inexorably gaining ground among feral cats. F.I.V. is a blood-transmitted disease mainly found among tom cats who are more directly combative than female ferals. There is no vaccine for F.I.V., and pet cats that war with feral toms are likely to become infected.

Dr. Davis talked sorrowfully of his own pet cat who become infected while defending himself as "the new kitty on the block." Fortunately, F.I.V. has a long incubation period of eight to 10 years, so a cat infected in middle age can usually live out its normal life span without suffering any ill effects.

Though F.I.V. is similar to H.I.V. and causes a disease in cats similar to AIDS in humans, current research shows that it does not present a health hazard to humans.

Not Unsociable

Rabies, however, definitely is a health hazard to humans. Though feral cats are considered to be a weak link in the rabies chain, cats now surpass dogs in the number of rabies cases reported annually in the United States.

Though no cases of rabies have been reported in Suffolk County for more than 50 years, Dr. Davis said, "It's such a serious disease that you have to be concerned." Experts advise people who handle feral cats on a routine basis to have a pre-exposure rabies vaccine. And, of course, all pet cats and dogs should be vaccinated.

Feral cats confound the popular perception of cats as solitary, unsociable creatures. When sufficient food resources exist, the cats will form stable communities consisting primarily of females and their female offspring.

Cat Colonies

Researchers of feral cat colonies report that females are never observed migrating outside of their colony to join other colonies as males are frequently observed doing. The females have been seen to communally nurse kittens, and to one another their behavior is generally amicable and sometimes downright affectionate. But not so to any strange females who attempt to approach the colony; they are repulsed quite fiercely.

Social arrangements among tom cats are more freeform. A detailed study of free-ranging cats that Swedish ethologist Dr. O. Liberg did in 1980 indicated that toms have four categories of social standing:

breeders - dominant adults who monopolize breeding females, a position that all other tom cats aspire to;

challengers - 2 to 3-year-olds aggressively vying with the breeders for access to females;

outcasts - young emigrant males avoiding all contact with other cats; and

adolescent novices - who still remain with their birth colony but are coming under increasingly frequent attack from the breeders.

Obviously, toms fight a great deal. Apart from spreading F.I.V. among themselves, they are frequently covered with abscesses from infected battle wounds. Dr. Davis described some of these warriors that have been brought into his clinic as "exploding" with abscesses.

Cat colonies will form around any reliable food source. Restaurants, delis, picnic grounds, and the backyards of those unwary enough to feed their pet cats out of doors. Feral cats are highly intelligent and extremely desperate animals - if there is food, they will come.

As a child I observed a feral colony that was founded upon a rather unique food source. While visiting the outdoor enclosures of the bears in the Central Park Zoo, my father, younger brother, and I were astonished to see a gray-striped cat slip through the bars of the polar bear's cage and snatch a hunk of fish from right under the bear's nose.

"Bear's Cats"

The zookeeper to whom we rushed with the astonishing news of this sighting was entirely unimpressed but did kindly direct us to look behind the bears' cages to see where the "bears' cats" lived.

There we discovered, to our great delight, a cat shantytown consisting of about 12 small houses erected just outside the bars of the enclosures. Though the cats eventually received supplementary feeding from the keepers and other kindly souls, the original draw to that site had been what they could steal from under the noses of bears.

Feral cats have their human supporters - an estimated 20 million people in this country take part in sustaining these animals to some extent or another. They also have their detractors, and with good reason.

Noise, Odor, Disease

Breeding colonies of feral cats are extremely noisy. The mating calls of the females and the screams of battling males disturb many a good night's sleep. When there are many tomcats in an area, their urine-spraying tendency can become a highly odiferous nuisance. And there is no doubt that they are vectors of disease.

But what has become the most controversial and emotionally charged concern is the issue of cats preying on wildlife, songbirds being the particular concern.

Worldwide, it is certainly true that the predation of cats has resulted in the extinction of many native species. However, these extinctions have occurred on islands that had no or few native predatory mammals; the unfortunate resident animals had no defenses against the invading felines. Since American native species have evolved alongside predatory animals, most researchers feel that feral cats have little effect on overall populations.

The declining number of songbirds is due to the destructiveness of humans, not cats. Cats are chiefly predators of small mammals. Analyses of the stomach contents of feral cats killed by cars indicate that birds form only a small part of their diet.

Don't Blame Them

However, though cats are not the bird-annihilating demons that some environmentalists paint them as, they are contributing some stress, however minor, to already depleted bird populations.

In 1916 Edward Howe Forbush, the state ornithologist of Massachusetts, wrote that it is "our duty to . . . eliminate the vagrant or feral cat as we would a wolf." Though wolves are now regarded in a more kindly light, at least by those who regard them from afar, many still espouse Forbush's solution for feral cats.

Endless Cycle

However, trap and kill policies are not only "unacceptable in this community," as Ms. Curtis put it, but they have been proven time and time again to be highly ineffective and extremely expensive.

It is difficult to trap all members of a breeding colony, and even if that is accomplished there is always a new supply of feral cats (and always will be as long as people continue to neglect the basic health care of their pets by not spaying or neutering them) to move into the newly vacated site and begin the cycle all over again.

The only solution to the heart-rending problem of feral cats is not a quick fix but one that requires time and diligence. Studies have shown that when the cats are trapped and then neutered or spayed, much of their objectionable behavior such as noisy fighting (with the attendant spread of F.I.V.), spraying, and, of course, multiplying in number are eliminated.

Devoted Caregiver

The colony that Mr. Fischer dedicates himself to are all spayed and neutered. It was no small task to accomplish this, but Mr. Fischer is very devoted to the cats.

"They are my hobby. Some people play golf - I take care of these cats," he said. It took patience as well as knowledge of the individual animals for him to accomplish the goal of neutering the entire colony.

"I'd have to sit there and watch and wait for the right cat to get into the trap," he recalls. In addition to their surgeries, the cats received vaccinations for rabies and distemper and had their ears notched so they could be easily identified as having already been treated.

Louise Nielsen was the guardian of a colony that resided at the Montauk dump. When she first undertook their care, the cats numbered around 30. After spaying and neutering, the colony slowly dwindled to nonexistence. Mr. Fischer's colony has decreased slowly in number as well; the original 19 cats now number 14.

Spaying and neutering programs are now advocated nationwide as the only workable, humane solution. One of the major stumbling blocks is lack of funding for this work. Cats, alas, fall between the funding cracks as far as state and Federal programs are concerned. Concerned individuals and organizations such as ARF are forced to take up the slack.

Another obstacle to successful implementation of spaying and neutering programs is the actions of well-intentioned cat feeders. Trapping the cats cannot be accomplished when alternative sources of food are being offered.

To leave a supply of food for a hungry animal may appear kind, but it is only serving to perpetuate the problem. As Mr. Fischer observed, "You can't feed a group of breeding cats and not expect their numbers to increase threefold or fourfold in a couple of years."

Deeper Commitment

In the case of feral cats, it would seem that kindness involves a far deeper commitment to their welfare than just simply supplying food.

Readers who are interested in participating in or supporting ARF's upcoming low-cost spaying and neutering campaign can contact the organization at its East Hampton offices. Information on feral cats and what can be done for them can be had from: The Feral Cat Coalition, 9528 Mirmar Road, San Diego, Calif. 92126, or Alley Cat Allies, P.O. Box 397, Mount Ranier, Md. 20712.