Cause of the cat people

Bob Kerridge called and the cat ladies came.

On a day of lashing rain and wild wind, women from around Auckland grabbed their brollies and, some clutching cages of kittens, made their way to the Auckland SPCA, drawn there by the region's best-known animal welfare whisperer.

A few men who turned out too, but women make up most of the small army of people who quietly care for the legions of cats living in our school grounds, in vacant lots and in carparks, under bridges and in churchyards.

These cat-carers slip out at night under the radar to provide what SPCA chief executive Kerridge says is a vital public service.

They feed, trap and desex colonies of stray cats, mostly paying out of their own pockets. They often stump up for the vet bills to treat mange and fleas, or the eye disease which gums the eyes of kittens tight shut.

Some spend thousands on stray cats and many have half a dozen at home - some a whole lot more.

It's also true a few of them fit the elderly white female profile of the cat-obsessed.

But not all. Many are ordinary folk with families who care about cats and who have similar stories of how they got involved; that first hungry, ratty cat foraging in a bin which tugged at the heartstrings.

They'll talk of how one cat led to another... and another.

So call them fanatical, they say, just don't call them nuts because caring for stray cats is a serious business.

The problem of stray cats is so serious, in fact, it's why Kerridge called the cat-carers together for a summit at the SPCA's education centre in Mangere.

At the end of the day, a new co-ordinated "Cat Coalition" had been born.

As the day wore on and a few different philosophies emerged, with only the tiniest of cat fights towards the end, the one thing everyone in the room had in common was this message: desexing is paramount.

The aim of even the most cat-heavy cat lady, or man, is to reduce the stray cat population.

If this small army of people did not exist to desex stray cats, the already high population would fast explode in numbers hard to imagine and cruel means would likely be employed to get rid of them.

To these people, prevention is better than culling. Take one unspayed female cat. If she has four litters of kittens a year, in less than two years she and her female kittens will produce 70-odd offspring.

If all their female offspring breed at a similar rate, over 10 years you are talking about hundreds of thousands of cats, all from that one line.

Before you shout at the cat-carers - and they say people often do, for encouraging stray cats - look for the cause a bit closer to home.

The uncomfortable truth is that just about all the stray cats out there originate abandoned and dumped domestic moggies, once-loved pets which Kerridge describes as having been "thrown away".

Last year alone 11,000 cats and kittens were handed over to the SPCA and only yesterday the SPCA put out an SOS for people to take on cats, saying the organisation was full-to-bursting and all the foster homes were full too.

Cats, said Kerridge sadly at the meeting, are the most disposable of pets.

The new Cat Coalition will come under the wing of the SPCA and one of its aims will be to get a handle on just how many stray cats there are.

It also means carers will have access to some financial assistance, but perhaps more importantly they will have some SPCA weight behind them when they come up against those who abuse and despise cats.

Because while some people really, really love cats, there are others who really, really hate them.

During the course of this meeting we hear some horror stories on the plight of the stray cat.

As the meeting starts, though, Kerridge hands the mike to the audience and one by one the cat-carers introduce themselves.

Sylvia from Forgotten Felines tells how her group looks after about 20 cat colonies throughout the North Shore. She's brought along "three babies" which were "thrown away", two of which were found at the Devonport Golf Course and one by the side of the Wairau Creek.

Christine says she oversees 43 cat colonies in South Auckland, "and I beat myself up I can't get to the rest".

"You can only do so much," Kerridge assures her, "and one of the purposes of this meeting is to swell our numbers so that we can help more cats."

Sharon from Waiuku is from Cats in Need and has brought along six tiny kittens which mewl through the day.

They were rescued the night before, found hungry and abandoned. They are flea-infested, have eye infections and are looking for a foster home.

Julie, who cares for a colony in Kumeu, says she often gets calls from people who want rid of their cats because they are moving house.

Ian Bergquist introduces himself as "a pain in the side of the North Shore City Council" and Diane O'Connor says if he's the pain, she's the thorn.

They manage the Rawene Rd cat colony in Birkenhead, probably the most high-profile of Auckland's cat colonies.

Council attempts to trap and remove the cats were thwarted by a 2500 strong petition and while the pair say rocky relations have improved, there are still complaints from businesses and Forest and Bird accusing the cats of nuisance and of killing native birds.

Cats as killers is one of the most emotive subjects. The cat people argue well-managed cat colonies reduce problems, partly because they are well-fed and cared for and partly because over time cat numbers actually decrease.

But they are up against a strong public perception that cats are bad for the environment.

Mark Farnworth is a Unitec animal scientist who came along to get some tips for future research. He has already studied New Zealand attitudes towards stray cats and has found that while New Zealand likes to think itself a nation of animal lovers, when it comes to the cat we are below countries such as Italy and America where trap, neuter and release (TNR) schemes are accepted as ethically sound.

The SPCA wants to educate the public about the soundness of TNR because Farnworth's studies show the public would rather see strays destroyed.

One of the problems here is a blurring in the public's mind on the difference between stray and feral cats.

Stray cats are the ones which originate from pets whereas feral cats are born in the wild and have no reliance on humans and are designated pests under the Biosecurity Act.

Even with feral cats, though, the jury is out on how bad they are for native wildlife.

Kerridge refers to a study in the bush of the Orongorongo Valley in Wellington which analysed cat scat (faecal remains) and found rats and rabbits were their stable foods, though they also ate some birds, lizards, fish and invertebrates.

The study concluded: "Our results suggest that cats are having little effect on most forest birds, especially those who do not feed on the ground, but that they are important predators of rodents and rabbits."

More studies are needed and there is a long way to go in public education, Kerridge says. Only a few years ago in New Plymouth dog rangers used to round up stray cats because they were defined as feral and despatch them by a piece of four-by-two.

Cats are demonised beyond what is fair, Kerridge tells the horrified audience, and explains how through history cats have played their role.

It's a well-known historical fact, he says, that London's great plague was caused as a result of the cats being eliminated. During the papal period cats were seen as devils and were killed but the rat population exploded.

Cats have gone from being worshipped in ancient Egypt to seen as evil in England to being worshipped again these days - well, by some. "No wonder they're confused," he says.

He hopes the day will come when New Zealand has cat-friendlier laws, saying that in Rome in 1991 a law was passed which gives cats the right to live free.

They must be desexed but by law they are protected and must not be removed from their colony.

The result is well-managed colonies and happy cats.

Here, some colonies of cats cared for by the cat folk are happy but many stray cats face sickening abuse.

A woman who looks out for cats in South Auckland shocked the audience with stories of a "neck-wringer" in Papakura and deep cigarette burns on cats being routine.

Sick litters of kittens are commonplace and she says letting them die one by one seems to be the preferred method of population control.

She talked of some residents playing "kitten games" and said just the other week in a street in Manurewa "a woman looked me in the eye and she seemed quite proud of the fact that her kid had strangled [a] whole litter, a boy 5 years of age".

She talked of a big issue in Housing New Zealand suburbs where welfare is appalling and abandonment is high, and this was backed up by others.

There are some animal lovers in these streets, the woman from South Auckland said, they are just terribly ignorant about how to care for their pets and, as a rule, don't have them desexed.

Even in higher-income suburbs, people will go to extremes in their hatred of cats.

At lunch, Bergquist talked of a person driving a vehicle with false number plates who set gin traps at the Rawene colony and shattered the paws of cats.

As for how much money he's spent on cats over 19 years, he says: "Don't ask."

Sheryl, from Avondale, with 17 cats at home, agrees some people might call her a mad cat lady and says actually her brother and sister have told her she should be in a nuthouse.

But she tells them to "get stuffed" and is leaving her house to the SPCA.

All her cats are desexed and she also cares for stray cats in the neighbourhood. Of her $420 paycheck, at least $200 goes on cats and dogs.

What she'd really like is to win Lotto and hand over lump sums to the vet up the road to desex cats.

After the meeting, Mark Farnworth says cats first trickled into New Zealand with the whalers in the late 1700s, then more came with colonisation.

The current population is a direct result of European settlement, he says, and he gives a very unscientific guess at possible stray cat numbers.

At the last census, there were about 1.2 million owned cats and he guesses there may be another 25 to 40 per cent out there that are not owned. That's anywhere between 250,000 and 400,000 stray and feral cats up and down the country.

So like them or loathe them, it looks like the cats - and the cat people - are here to stay.

CATS BY THE SCORE

* 250,000 to 400,000
Estimated NZ stray and feral cat population

* 11,000
Cats and kittens handed to the SPCA last year

* 70+
The number of offspring an unspayed female and her female kittens
could produce in two years