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Feline Folks Aid Stray Cats

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By SUSAN M. GREEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 29, 2007

SUN CITY CENTER - She's there behind the carport, her green eyes wide, clearly waiting for Mike Bundas but poised to bound away at a moment's notice.

'She looks good,' Bundas says. From a distance.

There's no yowling or mewing, no weaving around the feet of her human benefactor. She displays none of the characteristic feline reminders that a cat waits, hungry. She might be sore from her recent surgery, but she shows no sign. She might be purring, but no one will ever know.

Misty won't let anyone get close enough to hear.
Bundas puts a plate on the ground. Misty twitches with anticipation but stands her ground until he backs away. Then she and a few other cats that crouched in the shrubs nearby attack the store-bought pet food.

Recently spayed and regularly fed, Misty might appear to be one of lucky ones in the feral cat population of Hillsborough County.

Not as lucky as she could have been.

Somehow Misty's mother managed to hide her kittens from the caretakers of the cat colony, and Misty passed the magic age of 2 months without feeling the touch of a human hand. Without anyone knowing it, a window of opportunity for socialization slammed down, shutting out almost any chance the kitten had at becoming a lap cat.

Now a year old, Misty will be forever wary, and probably forever wild.

'You get within 10 feet and they hustle off,' Bundas says of Misty and the other sleek animals he cares for. 'If you try to pick them up, they'll rip you to shreds.'

Cats like Misty live behind restaurants, apartment complexes, strip malls, even adult businesses. Bundas points to a big garbage bin.

'They hang out where there's fast-food, Dumpsters, anywhere there's a source of food.'

Some experts estimate as many as 200,000 free-roaming cats live in colonies like Misty's across Hillsborough County.

The ones that find their way to Hillsborough's Animal Services, usually because of a complaint, face almost instant death. Officials say it's too dangerous for the staff to handle them, and they're not considered candidates for adoption. So they're euthanized within two days of capture.

People like Bundas, his wife, Rita, and Judy Stimson, all cat colony caretakers in Sun City Center, don't like that fate. They point to figures that show more than 90 percent of all cats taken in at Animal Services face lethal injection.
Animal Services Director Bill Armstrong cites figures that indicate only 17 percent of the cats arriving at the county-run shelter are deemed feral. Almost all are trapped and removed at the request of county residents who complain they're a nuisance.

'I don't want to euthanize one, much less 3,200 of these feral cats a year,' Armstrong said.

Still, 17,501 of the 19,038 cats taken in from July 2006 to July were humanely destroyed. That's about 92 percent.

Armstrong said the county has to balance the dismay of animal lovers against the wishes of many people who don't want cats digging in their gardens or spraying urine.

Sticking Up For Strays

The Bundases and Stimson think they have found a way to put a dent in the free-roaming cat population. In March, they founded Feline Folks, a nonprofit organization dedicated to a philosophy of feral cat care dubbed TNR: trap, neuter, return.

It's a philosophy endorsed by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' 'Mission: Orange' grant program in Hillsborough. Proponents say it has been shown to reduce feral cat populations in large urban centers such as New York.

Neutering the adult cats in a colony, getting them vaccinated and collecting the kittens for socialization and adoption as soon as they're weaned is the key to eliminating feral cat colonies, said Stimson and Sherry Silk of Tampa, the ASPCA's outreach manager for the southern region.

Early this year, the ASPCA announced a three-year, $600,000 grant to Animal Coalition of Tampa, the Humane Society of Tampa Bay, No More Homeless Pets and the county shelter. The intent is to increase the 'save rate' of homeless animals in Hillsborough, Silk said. About 25 percent of the funding is earmarked for feral cat initiatives, she said.
Sun City Center To Set An Example

The grant is paying for the services of a feral cat program coordinator, Petra Gearhart, hired in August. Her job is to help educate people about undomesticated cats, train caretakers in humane trapping methods and spread information about low-cost spay-neuter programs.

The grant also paid for 100 traps that are made available to people who want to try TNR. They have only to pay a $50 deposit that's refunded when the trap is returned, Silk said.

'A lot of people care about cats. They feel sorry for them and they feed them, but they don't do TNR,' Silk said. She said sterilizing adult cats keeps colonies from growing.

Feline Folks conducts seminars in TNR and hopes to raise money for sterilization. The Bundases said more than 40 kittens have found homes and more than 30 cats have been sterilized through their efforts.

Rita Bundas, Feline Folks president, said the group plans to continue the TNR program in Sun City Center.

'We really just believe in it and feel that cats don't deserve to be out there struggling to feed themselves,' she said. 'We're hoping Sun City Center will become a role model for other communities that have a feral cat problem.'

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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