News Briefs for the Week of September 9, 2002
By Marcella Durand for Cat Facts
- Feral Cats Do Fine in Jail
When an inmate at the Rikers Island jail in New York City tried to escape last summer, the wardens got a big surprise-feline style. "The escaped inmate hid underneath a modular trailer and when officers tried to gas him out, a lot of cats came running out instead," says Bryan Kortis, the executive director of Neighborhood Cats, a non-profit group dedicated to feral cat colonies.
After this "Great Escape," New York's Department of Correction (DOC) realized that something needed to be done about the colony, but they really appreciated the kitties' hard work in keeping the resident rodent population down, so they decided on a humane solution. In a rare show of cooperation (think about trying to herd cats and you'll get an idea of how tough it is to get New York City agencies working together), the city's Center for Animal Care and Control, the American Society for the Protection of Animals (ASPCA), the Humane Society, and Neighborhood Cats joined together to help the DOC implement a trap-neuter-return (TNR) program. "It's been considered the largest TNR project to be undertaken in a single facility anywhere in the country," says Gail Buchwald, director of the ASPCA Cares program. But, amazingly enough, so far the massive project hasn't cost taxpayers anything, thanks to the animal welfare organizations providing free veterinary care, medical supplies and mobile spay/neuter clinics, and corporate sponsors donating food and supplies.
So far, 201 cats have been returned to Rikers Island and 35 kittens have been adopted out. For more information, check out Neighborhood Cats' Web site at www.neighborhoodcats.org.
- Fewer Urinary Problems
Here's some good news for cat owners concerned about kitty's urinary tract health. The Minnesota Urolith Center in St. Paul reports that the number of operations to remove urinary stones in cats has gone down. Researchers studied 305,672 cats who were evaluated at veterinary teaching hospitals between 1980 and 1999.
The numbers parallel a similar decline in the frequency of urethral obstructions and "plugs" (which can seriously endanger kitty's life if not treated quickly), and that the declines "coincide with widespread use of diets to minimize struvite crystalluria in cats, which is important because struvite has consistently been the predominant mineral in feline urethral plugs during this period," says the report, which was published in the August 15 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
The numbers also show that more cat owners have been caring enough about their cats' health to feed them the special urinary tract health diets, when necessary.
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