Trapped cats not being euthanized, Kent residents told

By MICHAEL RISINIT
mrisinit@thejournalnews.com

THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: April 8, 2005)

KENT — The town is not trapping and killing feral cats, as some residents have feared — a worry that spawned a flier warning of such an undertaking and sent some concerned residents to a Town Board meeting this week.

"Absolutely," resident Trudy Byrnes said. "I don't think euthanizing is the answer. It's not their fault their owners have passed away (leaving them on their own)."

Some wild cats have been trapped, neutered or spayed, and adopted recently, Supervisor William Tulipane said, and two very sick cats were euthanized. In the past 14 months, Tulipane said, about 20 cats have been removed by volunteers from various spots around Lake Carmel and on the town's western side and found homes.

"It's working out pretty well," Tulipane said. "We're not killing and euthanizing. That's the last thing we have in mind."

Over the past year, town officials said, Kent has worked to control its feral-cat situation. Several colonies of up to about 20 cats each lived around Lake Carmel, and some trapping was done. Town Councilwoman Kathy Doherty said she hasn't heard any complaints lately.

"We have to formulate a policy on how to deal with cats," Doherty said.

Tulipane said certain neighborhoods, such as part of Towners Road, a neighborhood north of Route 311 and an area off Farmers Mills Road, have or had an overpopulation of strays. They start living under porches and digging in flower beds.

"These cats will collect there. They'll form a little group. They'll breed," Tulipane said. "People's flower beds start having the aroma of a litter box."

It's not a problem unique to Kent, local animal experts pointed out. Community Cats Inc. cares for about a dozen colonies of cats throughout northern Westchester, providing food and trapping, sterilizing and immunizing the animals. As in Kent, some are found homes, others are released back into their surroundings.

"The problem is worldwide," said Kathleen Hamilton, Kent's dog control officer.

Hamilton and Doherty were both upset about the appearance this week in a local deli of an anonymous flier urging residents to protest the trapping and killing.

"I have no idea where that could have come from," Doherty said of the flier.

Barbara Devolve, president of the Putnam Humane Society, said she suggested the town form a relationship with a local veterinarian willing to perform low-cost spaying and neutering. Devolve said many of the county's former summer communities have noticeable numbers of stray cats.

"The shelter gets more calls about stray cat populations from there than anywhere else," Devolve said.

Any further action by the town, such as instituting a town-financed trapping and sterilizing program, would require a Town Board resolution. "The present and proposed trapping of problem cats in Kent are inadequate and/or cruel," resident Dagmar Peterson wrote in a letter to the board this week.