ISYV Magazine: Feral Cats of SYV

By Anjie Park

These feral cats in the Santa Ynez Valley are being cared for and fed by local volunteers for Catalyst for Cats, an organization that was formed to specifically to “Trap-Neuter-Return” feral cats in Santa Barbara County. The number of euthanized feral cats in the Valley has fallen by 87% since the program began.

The wet spring and warm summer of 2005 produced abundant vegetation in the Santa Ynez Valley landscape. This flourishing undergrowth protects and feeds rodents that in turn become food for proliferating populations of wild animal species. An unexpected species of wild animal in Santa Barbara county is the feral cat.

Although feral cats (aka alley cats or stray cats) are heard caterwauling in urban areas, large colonies of undomesticated cats tend to multiply in agrarian communities like our rural valley.

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The problem generally begins when one hungry abandoned cat happens upon the doorstep of a compassionate ranch owner who begins to feed her. The stray has kittens out in the woodpile who grow quickly and have no human contact, then those kittens breed. The ranch owner is soon overrun with cats that torment his dogs, keep him up at night with their howling, and fight for the dish of food he leaves out for his original adoptee.

“If there’s one thing I plead, it’s for people to call us as soon as they start feeding a stray cat,” says Randi Fairweather, founder of the 15 year old Santa Barbara-based organization Catalyst for Cats. “We could avert the entire problem if we could get to that first homeless cat.”

A single-mindedly devoted woman, Fairweather has her work cut out for her. In just the Santa Ynez Valley alone, Fairweather and her team of dedicated volunteers trap well over one hundred cats each year. Working a model known in feral cat circles as “trap-neuter-return,” Catalyst for Cats receives calls from people all over the county with concerns about strays who feed on their property, in trash bins at local businesses, or in the parking lots of fast-food restaurants.
Trained volunteers show up at the site with notepaper to list each cat viewed in the area over the course of a few hours, and then catch the cats in humane cage traps.

The colony is then transported to the vet for neutering or spaying, shots, and ear tipping to identify them. Kittens under six to eight weeks of age are sent to volunteer foster feeders for bottle feeding and socialization, while older cats are adopted out or—surprisingly enough—returned to the original location.

“These cats are wild, scared to death of humans, and it’s usually too late to domesticate them at all.” According to Fairweather, the trap-neuter-return model is the most effective way to safely and humanely reduce feral cat populations.

“Once Catalyst for Cats has trapped and returned a cat colony, the spraying and caterwauling stops, the disease rate declines, the cats calm down, and through attrition, the population decreases,” Fairweather said.

The volunteers’ tireless efforts have met with remarkable success in humanely controlling the numbers of ferals. Since its 1991 inception, the number of cats euthanized in the Santa Ynez Valley has fallen by 87%, and the number keeps decreasing, a significant gain for humans and felines who are lucky enough to live here.