Cat lover spends big to save strays
Published: February 7, 2006
Her visits to the city park, one of several designated by the city government here as a “cat haven,” follow a set routine. The woman invariably arrives shortly after 5 p.m.
A dozen cats run up to her, meowing eagerly to be fed the cat food and dried bonito fish she had brought.
As the cats feast, the woman, 53, picks up trash and clears out a space where the cats sleep in the shrubbery.
She confessed that she shells out up to 60,000 yen of her own money every month to buy food and pay for sterilizations.
She is one of 15 volun-teers in a group that steps in where the local govern-ment is slow to tread: rounding up strays and bringing them to veterinary clinics to be neutered and spayed.
In nearly every city of the prefecture, stray cats are becoming an expensive and annoying headache.
While cash-strapped local governments are at a loss about how to combat the feral cat population explosion, volunteers are making headway, some-times at their own expense.
Five or six members take turns looking after the 30 to 40 strays that hang out in the park, which the group asks to remain nameless for fear unscrupulous pet owners might decide to dump even more cats there.
Many of the cats at the park have tags attached to their ears, indicating they have been sterilized, the woman said.
The Shizuoka prefectural government says 17 of its municipal governments offer subsidies to pay for stray-cat sterilizations. The local government that oversees this park pays 5,000 yen to 7,000 yen per cat.
That’s not enough to cover the entire cost of the operation, however.
To raise funds, the group holds flea markets and cat photo exhibitions.
But that seldom gene-rates enough money, the cat-loving woman said. So the devoted cat lovers spend money from their own pockets.
The group tries to find new homes for the strays, posting information on a stray-cat Web site. Their efforts at one point redu-ced the number of strays in the park by half.
The situation didn’t last long, however.
Feral cats live only about four years on the street, the group said, so they had expected the stray-cat problem at the park to disappear over a four-year period.
Although it has been three years since they began their efforts, there’s no sign of a decline in the number of strays needing their help.
In fact, the number has risen lately.
Unwanted cats are being dumped by owners who are tired of looking after them, according to the group.
That leaves an uncertain fate for the animals.
Many former pets end up dying in the cold or of diseases. Others end up in animal shelters, where they are quickly euthanized, the woman said.
“Cat owners should not allow their pets to produce offspring if those kittens are merely destined to be killed. People must do something to keep their pets from reproducing,” she said.
“In truth, I would prefer to look after only my own pets,” said the woman, clearing away the leftovers as the contented strays, their stomachs full, sat licking their whiskers and cleaning their paws.
After her hour in the park, she drove over to an animal clinic where she had dropped off a stray to be sterilized the day before.
One of the local govern-ments in Shizuoka Prefecture tackling the stray-cat problem is Hamamatsu.
Since fiscal 2001, Hama-matsu has designated many parks as special “stray cat parks,” where the master-less felines are cared for by volunteers.
The city has set up contracts with veterinarians to sterilize the strays. In the past five years, the city and 49 community associations worked together to look after 612 stray cats in 29 parks.
One worker in the health and welfare section of the Hamamatsu city health center said that gaining the cooperation of residents is vital.
The main problem is not the cats, but the humans who neglect them, the city employee pointed out.
According to prefectural government data, Shizuoka prefecture received 3,111 consultations and complaints about stray cats in fiscal 2004. Local governments caught a total 9,681 stray cats, most of which were euthanized. About 80 percent were kittens.
A government official said those figures give a clear picture of how irresponsible owners are adding to the problem by not preventing their pets from reproducing.
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