Who does Charlotte Todd think she is, anyway?
Cape May has a perfect storm brewing: bird lovers versus cat lovers. It’s all about whether feral (wild) cats should be neutered and released, thus posing an alleged danger to shorebirds like the endangered piping plover, least terns, and black skimmers.
The whole issue is based on suppositions and estimates and emotions.
Now along comes Todd, representing the Cape May Environmental Commission, seeking information. Factual information. What kind of a precedent is that going to set?
The city has a successful TNR (trap, neuter and release) program aimed at stemming the increase in feral cats. It also is preparing a beach management plan which includes pro-tecting endangered and threatened species of shore birds as well as plants.
Can these two plans co-exist?
The recent fire that destroyed the trailer used for the TNR program brought the feral cats to the fore. Should the program be resumed? And should it be resumed particularly in the light of pressure from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior to discontinue TNR as a danger to the shorebirds.
Almost everyone was getting along as expected, dealing strictly from emotions. Some sort of knockdown drag out brawl was expected. (For video, see the Herald Website.) Now Todd has asked City Council for a whole bunch of facts — facts it clearly doesn’t have.
Todd wants to know:
• How many cats are on the beaches?
• Where are they located?
• How many endangered shorebirds are they killing?
• How many shorebirds are killed by crows, raccoons, foxes, and people?
• How many rodents are in the city and do feral cats help control them?
• What about so-called backyard birds. How many are there and do the neutered feral cats threaten them?
• And finally, has Paris Hilton really reformed? (I just stuck that in to wake you up.)
Todd says she wants scientific answers, which is the kind of person she is.
City Council passed the buck (after all, they are elected officials) to Fish and Wildlife and to city Animal Control Officer John Queenan, all invited to council’s Aug. 7 work session.
That’ll be work all right.
Fish and Wildlife would be crazy to get out from behind their desks and come to Cape May and face cat lovers.
Eric Davis, acting supervisor of the New Jersey Field Office of Fish and Wildlife Service has already had his say in a letter to the Press of Atlantic City.
He repeats the supposition, but offers little data.
He said Fish and Wildlife has “identified” feral cats as “the predominant piping plover predator in developed shore communities...”
His letter gives a New York example (no date) and a two-year-old New Hampshire exam-ple.
Trust me; that will not satisfy Charlotte Todd.
Davis lectures the reader a bit about the fact that “the domesticated cat is not native to North America.” Is there an anti-immigration bias here? He also says, and this will shock you, “Indoor cats live longer, healthier lives than outdoors cats.”
So the answer, says Mr. Davis, presumably well-intentioned, is to trap, neuter, and release to a loving home.
I’m not so sure Davis has ever seen a feral cat. Many of them don’t exactly take to hu-mans, or their homes. I tried to shush one away once from going under my porch and it chased me into the house, hissing all the way.
And someone should send him some statistics from the county Animal Shelter about how many cats are euthanized because there are more homeless cats than can possibly be ac-commodated.
So far this year, the shelter has taken in 283 cats. It has been able to place a third. What should Cape May do, pass a law requiring every person to have at least one cat?
Jiminy Crickets; who could possibly know how many cats are on Cape May’s beaches?
You ever try to count feral cats? They don’t exactly line up like Army recruits.
You think that’s a doozy (not to be confused with a floozy), Todd wants to know how many rodents there are? The whole point of being a rodent is not to be seen, let alone counted.
You want to see a rodent? Go see “Ratatouille.”
Don’t look for anyone to answer Todd’s questions. In fact, she may have known that all along and just raised them to show how little evidence there is of a cat-plover problem in Cape May.
If you were a feral cat, would you hang out around the fishing docks, or would you burn your paws crossing Beach Avenue to get to a hot, crowd ed beach? Have you ever seen a cat with a sunburn?
I understand that Davis is just doing his job. But I have some advice. Don’t come to Cape May Aug. 7.