There’s a saying that goes: “To judge a place, look at the stray cats. If they are friendly, bold, and relaxed, you know it is a good town with good people.”
Alamedans have a complicated relationship with local stray cats. While some residents stop to coo and take pictures of the colonies scattered throughout the island, others take to Facebook to lament the unowned cats who tease their dogs and tear up their gardens. Merry Bates, Board President of Island Cat Resources and Adoption (ICRA), spoke to the Alameda Post about best practices for interacting with and living alongside these animals.
ICRA came about in 1994. It all started with a small group of Alamedans who were dedicated to the practice of TNR (trap, neuter, return). They kept running into each other at the vet’s office and out on trap projects. Eventually, they realized if they worked together they’d be more effective. So ICRA was born.
“Then we added an adoption program a year later in 1995,” Bates told the Post. “We’ve continually grown and expanded. We’re no longer just in Alameda. We’ve extended all the way down to Hayward and Fremont. We’ve spayed and neutered almost 2,000 cats last year alone.”
However, due to rising vet costs and an uptick in unowned cats, ICRA will shrink its services moving forward, focusing exclusively on Alameda, Oakland, and San Leandro. “That alone is more than overwhelming,” said Bates.
ICRA receives 75% of their calls regarding cats on the West End, Bates noted. “In the West End there’s more dense housing and transitional housing, especially out on the base,” she said. But stray and feral cats can be spotted throughout the island.
The number of cats has fluctuated through the years. Bates has observed a relationship between the unowned cat population and economic factors, such as housing costs.
“As we came out of the pandemic, and with a rise in inflation, we’ve seen double cost increases in vet care,” she said. “Spay and neuter has doubled for us. So we’re anticipating another big wave. Because if we’re having trouble paying for vet care, there are people who won’t be able to afford to spay or neuter their cats, which leads to an increase in stray cats.”
Another factor is physical access to vet care. “During the pandemic a lot of vets left the profession,” said Bates. “So it’s also about having access to spay and neuter clinics, which is a problem for the public as much as it is for the nonprofits.”
Where are all these cats coming from? Unowned cats are either feral—born in the wild and that’s all they have ever known—or abandoned, making them strays. Feral cats are typically the progeny of an abandoned pet.
“Feral cats don’t just magically appear,” said Bates. “They come from someone’s former pet at some point. It could be three generations before, but generally that’s where it starts.”
It just takes one unfixed female to turn into 25 [cats] within a year.
If a cat who is not spayed or neutered is abandoned and mates with another “unfixed” cat, a colony can blow up fast. “For whatever reason, people decide they’re not gonna care for their cats anymore and let them roam free,” said Bates. “And that is really what starts these colonies. It just takes one unfixed female to turn into 25 within a year. Let’s say she has a litter of five and three are females—they are giving birth by five, six months of age.”
To repeat: Colonies are started by people abandoning their cats. As long as cats are abandoned by their owners, there will be stray cats. So what are best practices when interacting with a colony?
“Best practice is to spay and neuter,” said Bates, “because that is the most humane and most effective method to curb the population. If there’s a set number of cats that appear in a particular year and we get them fixed, it actually stabilizes the population and we don’t see new cats coming in.”
TNR is the gold standard. The “R” in TNR was formerly “release,” before it became “return.” But it’s more ethical for cats to be returned to exactly where they were found if they are feral. Just like indoor cats, unowned cats get accustomed to their particular surroundings and routines. Being dropped off somewhere new after surgery can be traumatizing.
Feral cats under four months old may be adopted and domesticated, according to Bates. But once the kittens are older than four months, it’s extremely difficult to get them accustomed to people and domestic life. For this reason, it’s often better to keep truly feral cats in the wild. If they are taken to a shelter, “they rarely leave the shelter alive,” said Bates. “It’s pretty much guaranteed euthanasia.”
Stray cats, on the other hand, who once lived with people but were abandoned, can potentially be adopted and rehomed. It’s generally pretty apparent, behavior-wise, which cats have always lived in the wild and which cats used to live with a family.
But what to do with the cats who cannot be rehomed, once they are spayed or neutered? The humane thing to do is to feed them. When a person or group of people takes on the responsibility of keeping a colony of cats fed and hydrated, that is known as a managed colony.
Not everyone on the island is in favor of keeping Alameda’s colonies fed, however. There are signs in the Webster Square Shopping Center that read: “PLEASE STOP FEEDING THE FERAL CATS. Alameda County requests this practice to cease immediately due to health and safety issues. Leaving out food and water bowls also attracts unwanted pests such as rodents and insects.” The signs cite ordinance code 6.40.530. However, a search of Alameda County ordinances indicates that no such ordinance exists.
“I get when people or businesses don’t want food left out because it can attract other wild animals,” said Bates. “So we tell people who take care of cat colonies, ‘you’ve got to be a responsible caretaker,’ which means you’ve got to keep feeding areas clean and in areas that are not visible.”
According to Alameda Animal Control Officer Alaina Onesko, it is not illegal to feed feral cats as long as they are not being fed on someone else’s private property.
One late springtime evening at sunset, Nancy Vasquez hopped out of her brother’s car with a big yellow bag of food in her hand to feed a colony on the West End. She was greeted by four purring cats, eager to rub up against her legs, ecstatic for their daily meal. Their small food bowls were hidden by plants, unnoticeable to passersby. The area appeared tidy.
“I feel sorry for them and I love cats.”
Vasquez has lived in Alameda for 47 years. She’s been feeding West End cat colonies since before all the new housing popped up. When asked why she’s passionate about keeping the strays fed she replied, “I feel sorry for them and I love cats.”
It’s not always a popular role in the community. “One mean lady came by one night here and told me she was gonna report me to the police,” said Vasquez. “They say they don’t like cats in these neighborhoods. But the cats are very sweet, and they’re all fixed so they don’t have any more kittens. I just want them to be comfortable.”
The colony that Vasquez feeds every day, rain or shine, is filled with cats who are wary of people. They stay low behind brush with big, watchful eyes and are quick to dart when approached. But they sure do love Vasquez. They trust her to be kind. The stray cats of Alameda may not be friendly, bold, and relaxed. But perhaps they are good judges of character.
Kelsey Goeres is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Kelsey-Goeres.
