Letter to the Editor

It is often said that in this world there are “dog people” and that there are “cat people.”If you meet enough people in your life, you will know that this isn’t 100% true, there are people who love both and there are people who dislike both (I am wary of the latter).

But the idea of this concept is so ingrained in societies around the globe that it speaks to the human connection to these two species over basically all others. There is no similar comparison between “snake people” (I am also one of these) and “hamster people.”

This is probably due to the fact that we have been sharing our lives with these species as “domesticated” animals for tens of thousands of years (dogs about 30,000 years ago, cats a little more recent at less than 10,000 years ago). There is an interesting argument that cats aren’t technically “domesticated,” but for the purpose of this writing I will use that term.

Two stories have been causing a stir (or “purr” in this case) around Cranbrook recently.  The first was the horrific story of a cat rescued 14 km up a forestry road in freezing conditions with terrible injuries. “Wilson,” as he has been named, miraculously survived and is in good spirits according to the BCSPCA.

The second story is that of the feral cat “colony” at the College of the Rockies being threatened with removal after being in existence for over a decade, and the community’s fight against that removal.

Both of these stories have created a huge emotional outcry.  People have expressed disdain how anyone could be so “evil” to dump a cat, and what “sociopath” would want to disturb a “cat colony.” Donations, emotive posts and petitions have been shared on social media en masse.

The sad part is, these two situations are related in why they have both occurred.  However, when that is ever raised in conversation or on social media, it is shut down immediately with anger and repulsion. The issue is that Cranbrook has a cat conundrum.

It seems like a week doesn’t go by without posts on Facebook announcing missing cats. Sometimes these are indoor cats that have escaped, which does happen to many pets. But mostly, these are free-roaming cats.

Sometimes they have been hit by vehicles, and subsequent calls for speed limits to be reduced are spread openly. There are regular posts about areas around town where trapped cats have been dumped, far away from where they live. This is morally and ethically wrong, it is cruel and ecologically damaging if the cats even survive.  Introducing domesticated cats to the wild is how feral cats are formed.

But this dumping is telling of frustrations of the population who aren’t happy about these free-roaming cats impacting them.  And also is easily avoided by not allowing cats to roam freely.

The trapping of free-roaming cats on your property is legal. If you’re in the Cranbrook jurisdiction, free-roaming cats are covered by the “animals at large” bylaw. This has been in place for years, but often ignored due to lack of repercussions.  So much so that, when the City of Cranbrook announced new licensing for cats and reminding owners of the fines for free-roaming cats, people were vocal about the “change,” when the free-roaming fines were not new.

Cranbrook has a cat-loving population, as is common in much of the world.  As with most pet owners, a majority of these cat-lovers only want the best for their feline friends.  Many, however, are of the opinion that cats are supposed to roam free wherever they please. Many also feel that their cats are protecting the town from being overrun by rodents (commonly stated on social media, absolutely lacking in actual evidence).

These free-roaming cats can be seen at any hour of the day, in any part of Cranbrook.  It was actually quite a shock to me when I moved here from Australia in 2015.  I have lived and travelled all over the world, and some places are overrun with stray cats while other places are mostly devoid of them.

I have lived in the Middle East for many years, where cats were first domesticated. It would not be uncommon to see 20 stray cats a night roaming around stores or houses looking for scraps in garbage. I also saw Arabian wildcats when I lived in Saudi Arabia.  But I have never seen so many pet cats free-roaming as I have in Cranbrook.

Not everyone wants to be exposed to these free-roaming cats.  I have numerous cats visiting my yard daily.

Whenever there is fresh snow, I see little paw prints everywhere. On the coldest night of this winter, I had a cat walking through fresh snow in temperatures that couldn’t have been comfortable. My new BBQ lasted a week after purchase before being sprayed by a tom.

My dog, when he was a puppy, was playing with me in the back yard when he saw a cat and chased it (he’s a herding dog).  That cat sliced his face open.  I also grow food in my garden, and I am not excited to see my yard being used as a litter box, especially as I know enough about Toxoplasma gondii (the reason why those who are pregnant are not supposed to clean litter boxes) to know that I don’t want it in my brain.

After pleading with the City of Cranbrook to do something, a press release was sent out reminding the population of Cranbrook about the bylaw against free-roaming cats.  This was met with mockery on social media, with comments basically aligning with “it’s in their nature” and how “cruel” it is to keep a cat indoors.  These are commonly held beliefs in this vicinity, ones I regularly hear in conversation and read online.

I personally ended up trapping two separate cats after this attempt to have the population reminded of their responsibilities. The first cat I trapped was the one that had attacked my dog. I took both of these to the SPCA as the bylaw office did not respond.

The first had been there over five times before, the second had out-of-date information.  I begged the staff of the SPCA to educate the owners, which they promised to do.

That first cat returned to my yard within two days.  While I would never dump a cat out of town, clearly doing the right thing by taking the cats to the BCSPCA doesn’t solve the problem.

have friends who are neighboured by properties in Cranbrook, and the surroundings, where cats roam freely producing kittens (often from sibling parents). These cats often number between 10 and 20 animals. When cats are removed and taken to the BCSPCA, those cats are soon replaced by fresh litters. Calls to local Bylaw Officers often fall on deaf ears, usually due to understaffing.

The feral cat “colony” at the College of the Rockies has been in existence for a decade, according to the caretakers. The 14 cats that live there are all spayed/neutered. The caretakers have stated that these cats are solely reliant on “food, water and shelter that has been provided to them” but also the caretakers have stated that the cats “stay primarily within the immediate area where they are cared for which is in a locked and secure compound.”

These caretakers have spent years and thousands of dollars taking care of these feral cats who, judging by the photos provided, are very well taken care of.  It is clear that the caretakers are doing what they think is best for these cats, and that they have kind hearts.  However, something about the situation stuck with me. The concept of “staying primarily” made me uneasy.

I majored in Zoology at a university in Australia.  I did this for a number of reasons, but mostly I picked Zoology because of a love of wildlife.  All wildlife, perhaps with the exception of mosquitoes. A large part of my education was studying ecology.  Ironically, when I mentioned my degree and experience while trying to highlight a differing view to free-roaming cats and the COTR issue, I was mostly mocked by those who believed that “science doesn’t know everything.”

Feral animals are a disastrous issue in Australia due to the unique endemic biodiversity. Australia is a true case study in “what not to do” with the introduction of a species, from red deer to rabbits, cats to foxes, cane toads to pigs.  Even invasive buffalo are a huge concern.

There are over 10 million cats in Australia, of which it is estimated that two thirds are feral. These cats (pets and feral) kill an estimated two plus billion (with a “B”) animals a year, including mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs.  Those are not just the invasive mice, but native animals.  I studied this at a tertiary level and saw the devastation with my own eyes.  I have also seen some enormous Australian feral cats.

Cats in Canada are no better, killing over 100 million birds a year (it is estimated). The numbers for wildlife killed by cats (feral and pets) in the US is in the billions (some estimates as high as 20 billion a year).  These studies producing estimates often come under fire by cat-apologists, but every study has limitations.  Even a tenth of these numbers should upset any animal lover.

It could be easily argued that cats, not humans, are responsible for more of the pressures of extinction of species worldwide.  If it is humans taking first place, cats would take the silver medal.

Some cats are terrible hunters.  They have become unskilled and lazy indoors (haven’t we all?). But most cats are still quite capable hunters. All feral cats would have to be capable to survive (unless fed like the COTR situation – which technically makes that group “stray” domesticated not “feral”).  Cats also hunt for fun, not purely for sustenance.

Cats are actually not known as being great at killing mice, regardless of their popularity for this purpose leading to them travelling the world on ships throughout history. Many people will argue with anecdotal experiences (the weakest form of scientific evidence) about amazing “mousers,” but that doesn’t hold much ground with me.

Cats are generally accepted as being exceptionally talented at hunting birds.  So much so that pet cats have been observed ingeniously dampening their collar bells while hunting, so as not to alert the birds being stalked (often the reason for the bells). This is why the brightly coloured frilly “Elizabethan collar” gained media attention years ago in the UK.

Cats are also essentially solitary animals.  This concept seems to upset cat-lovers when it is raised.  They do have the ability to “bond” with humans or other cats.  They do have the ability to socialise with other cats and humans.  These actions would be usually limited to littermates in the wild, but domesticated animals don’t tend to act like they would in the wild.

Most cats also don’t form large “colonies” in the wild, in the way that many feral cat care programs proclaim, but sometimes form “matrilineal colonies” with females caring for kittens living in close proximity to a food source.  These cats are usually related.

The use of the term “colony” when referring to “feral” cats being fed by human caretakers is loaded, and used for a reason.  It is not really accurate, just as the animals aren’t technically feral if they are being taken care of by humans.  Many feral cat care groups proclaim a lot of information as fact, but some of the claims aren’t reflected by research and only personal anecdotes.

The reason why the concept of “staying primarily” at that location on the COTR premises irked me was the concept that, if these cats are still free to roam wherever they please, they are still potentially causing an ecological impact.

If these cats were restricted to their compound, much like the use of “catios” by educated cat owners who seek to enrich their cat’s lives without causing ecological destruction, then this group would have my full support.  I would sign the petition and share the link.  But the photos seem to show that they are semi-contained at best.

There is a great irony in the public outrage to the proposed removal of this colony at COTR.  The claims that these 14 well-cared-for cats would not survive are likely quite accurate.  The petition had over 20,000 signatures when I last checked, all supporting the care for these 14 cats in their current location.

The irony, in my eyes, revolves around the saving of 14 cats while not balancing that with the potential ecological harm.  If these 14 cats killed 100 animals a year for a decade, that’s 14,000 deaths of birds and mammals.  That number isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination to anyone who has even a cursory understanding of the research.

The BCSPCA published a news story a few days ago called “Prevent cat-astrophe: Protecting wild babies from cat attacks,” highlighting many of the points I have made here and ones that I have talked about ad nauseum on social media (before regularly being blocked by those who disagree).

I suggest anyone who disagrees with me but supports the BCSPCA go read it.  I receive the BCSPCA newsletters because I regularly donate to them, and have taken part in the BCSPCA and Australian RSPCA cupcake days for over a decade.  I believe in their cause and I support what they do.

The ‘Cranbrook Cat Conundrum’ is one of finding a balance between providing cats (pets and feral) with healthy and enriched lives while protecting the environment and not impacting our neighbours who don’t want other peoples’ cats on their property.

It is a hard conundrum to resolve, as it requires a complete change in mentality via education in a population often that refuses to accept that quite openly.  It would probably mean the deaths of feral cats unable to be kept as pets.  But it would be a step in the right direction.

Students at the COTR have thrown their support behind the colony, from what I have read.  I hope that they also take the initiative to spread the world about responsible management of such cats.

The mentality that “it’s ok to dump a cat up a forestry road” is the same as the mentality that thinks “it’s ok to let a cat roam freely.”  It’s not based on facts or caring about the actual wellbeing of the cat, it is based on old fashioned thinking that the individual knows best and reluctance to catch up to much of the world with modern understanding of ethical pet care and ownership.

There is a weird disconnect in this community when it comes to thoughts about dogs vs cats.  Outcries over people not cleaning up after their dogs in public spaces are always supported, yet few care about cleaning up after free-roaming cats.  Dogs running freely and even attacking pets and children are vilified, while the same feelings are not shared about cats.

Regardless of everything written above, I am glad that Wilson was rescued and has survived. No domestic animal deserves that treatment.

I also hope that the COTR cat debate finds a resolution that protects both the cats and the wildlife that they potentially impact. My wish is that the population of Cranbrook would one day learn that as part of our duty of care to domesticated animals and we need to be responsible for how they impact others.

Lead image: An example of a cat dumped out of town was “Grizabella,” named by BC SPCA East Kootenay staff after she was delivered to them at the end of January. She first appeared at e-KNOW’s doorstep in mid January and stuck around, seeking human comfort, food and warmth. After being sure it wasn’t a neighbour’s cat visiting, we scooped her up and took her to the SPCA. They cleaned the loveable feline up and quickly found a new home for her. BC SPCA East Kootenay photo

Ross Blake,

Cranbrook

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