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CT town inundated with feral cats abandons plan involving mass trappings, euthanasia after backlash

Writer's picture: Candace BouchardCandace Bouchard


Hartford Courant |By JUSTIN MUSZYNSKI | October 2, 2024 |


Officials in North Haven have pulled back on a plan to capture and kill feral cats in town after a backlash from animal advocates who pointed out the cruelty involved with mass trappings and euthanasia.


The initial plan was announced last week in response to numerous complaints about stray cats in the area of Vineyard Road and the unsanitary conditions they can cause as well as the diseases they may carry, according to the North Haven Police Department. Police said in one instance a domesticated dog was attacked by a cat and lost an eye.


While animal advocates acknowledge the issues stray cats can cause, they also say trapping these animals and euthanizing them is not the answer. The initial plan by officials in North Haven was possible through a law passed in Connecticut in the 1990s that allows municipalities to trap cats and, if unclaimed after seven days, euthanize them.


“Of course that was unacceptable,” said Robin “Zilla” Cannamela, president and co-founder of Desmond’s Army Animal Law Advocates. “There was no plan there, there was no education.”


Jody Macrina of Protectors of Animals — an East-Hartford based nonprofit no-kill animal shelter — said the key to solving a city or town’s issues with “cat communities” is to spay and neuter the animals and to show some patience.


“Killing them is not going to make a difference because there’s always somebody who’s going to have to put an unaltered animal out there for one reason or another and the breeding starts again,” said Macrina, who joined Protectors of Animals in 2000 and has been president since May 2001. “Spay and neuter is the key to the problem that we’re in right now.”


After learning of North Haven Animal Control’s plan to deal with feral cats, First Selectman Michael J. Freda said that multiple animal shelters and groups stepped up to help with the town’s plan, which will no longer involve euthanasia.


Freda said he was at a statewide mayor’s meeting when he suddenly became bombarded with text messages asking “why is North Haven killing cats?” After gathering information about the original plan that was made by North Haven Animal Control and learning of the Facebook post advising residents of what would happen, Freda said he immediately put everything on hold. He said he put aside his other responsibilities and spent the next four days speaking with animal shelters, hospitals and experts to determine what the best course of action would be to address the issue some North Haven residents are facing.


“My first statement was ‘We’re not going to be killing cats,'” Freda said.


According to Freda, a “humane mass trapping program” will be coordinated by the Friends of Feral Cheshire Cats organization. North Haven police will assist with the trapping and transport of the animals, Freda said.


Freda said the Mount Carmel Veterinary Hospital in Hamden has agreed to assist with the trap-neuter-return of the cats. The hospital will evaluate the cats and provide medical examinations, which will include giving them vaccinations and determining which cats need to be spayed or neutered.


According to Freda, the hospital will also advise town officials on where the cats should be released. Freda also wrote that the KittyKat Ranch — a cat sanctuary — will help with finding homes for some of the cats.


Freda said the coordinated effort would likely begin within a week to 10 days once the logistics have been worked out.


“North Haven will not be killing cats,” Freda said. “That I can assure everybody across the state.”


Cannamela and Macrina both agreed that the situation in North Haven can serve as an educational tool going forward for other communities dealing with feral cats. The plan laid out by Freda is a much more responsible way to go about handling this issue that plagues so many communities in the state, they say.


Cannamela called Freda a “champion for animals,” one who helped work on Desmond’s

Law before it was passed in Connecticut in 2016, allowing courts to appoint advocates in animal cruelty cases.


“I know that when he heard about this, he had to be mortified,” Cannamela said of the town’s initial plan.


“He’s a cat guy,” she added.


Making sure groups of cats are spayed and neutered is the most humane way to deal with these animals, which animal advocates often like to refer to as “cat communities” rather than feral cats.


“When you trap a colony of cats and you spay and neuter them, they go away through attrition,” Macrina said. “If you trap all the cats and relocate or euthanize them, that whole vacuum is going to fill up again because somebody’s feeding or you’re close to housing.”


Macrina said every animal that comes through the doors of Protectors of Animals has been spayed or neutered before being adopted.


“So even if they’re abandoned at some point, which I pray never happens, they’re only looking for food and shelter,” Macrina said. “They are not contributing to the overpopulation.”




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1 Comment


Guest
Oct 04, 2024

SMH. Animal advocates do what's best for the animal, not what's best for the so-called "advocates." I know. Euthanasia makes YOU cry. It's even been studied: The Impact of Caring and Killing on Physiological and Psychometric Measures of Stress in Animal Shelter Employees: A Pilot Study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7764342/). Meanwhile, cats are Target No. 1 these days because so-called advocates like you have done NOTHING about "Don't F_ck with Cats" on Netflix, which aired THROUGHOUT Covid, when millions of people were laid off, broke, angry and bored. Search Google News for:

  • charged with animal cruelty; or

  • cat killed.

After a June 2024 Fox 61 story in which Desmond's Army said it used to see a handful of animal cruelty cases per month…


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