Problems caused by stray cats

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Stray, or feral cats are usually classified as a pest species due to their habits of occupying public places in high numbers, fighting and spraying. The most common complaints include the following:

• Stray cats occupying public areas
• Stray cats around facility dumpsters
• During mating season, foul musk scent
• Stray cats fighting or mating loudly
• People concerned about stray cat population
• Strays posing a threat to pet cat

PLEASE HELP CONTROL THE STRAY CAT PROBLEM:
1) DON'T FEED STRAY CATS
2) DON'T ABANDOND YOUR PET CAT
3) HAVE YOUR CAT SPAYED OR NEUTERED

If you need to trap and transport stray cats, read my guide to stray cat trapping.

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Cats are lovely creatures until they are dumped by their owners and left to their own devices. What most people aren’t aware of is the fact that a kitten may be small and cute and not eat a lot when it is that small but eventually it will grow up to be feisty, territorial, hungry and a pain in the backside. For the most part, cat owners adapt as their pets grow, but for families on a budget, rather than re-homing the poor pet, or making sure it ends up somewhere safe, they just dump it on the streets and leave it to fend for itself. This can cause all manner of problems, but in reality, these pet owners don’t think about that – they are just thinking about how much they can no longer cope with the pet.

Stray cats can cause all sorts of problems in the long term, including the following:

• They mate – A LOT! Just think; a male cat can mate with a number of different females over the course of the mating season. They can also mate with family pets, leaving some cat owners with rather unwanted litters in their airing cupboards one day! Most of the stray babies will, of course, die but let’s think about it logically; people are already dumping unwanted cats, how is creating more going to add to the problem. Very few cat owners are getting their animals neutered or spayed so when they release the cats into the wild, they are leading the way for an epidemic of kitty babies!

• They travel in packs or small colonies. This can mean a number of things – firstly, there are going to be territory fights that your family pets could end up getting involved in. Secondly, this makes it easier for them to spread nasty disease such as rabies, feline HIV and feline leukemia, and also things such as fleas and ticks. The latter two are going to cause you all sorts of problems if you get them in your home and you will more than likely need to spend a small fortune on removal of these horrible bugs. Also, rabies can be passed on to humans, which is NOT pleasant at all! You need to remember that most pet owners will not have had their cats vaccinated before they chose to dump them on the streets or kick them out of their homes, so this in turn, is making the cat disease circle an even bigger problem.

• As well as the more serious problems mentioned above, you are also likely to find that stray cats will root through garbage cans, rip open garbage bags, steal food from your own family pets and worse.

There are ways that you can help stray cats without even having to go anywhere near them, and the first of which is to call the correct authorities to alert them of the strays roaming around in your neighborhood. From this point you can choose to donate food, (rather than feeding them yourself which can cause more problems still) and you can even choose to re-home an unwanted pet if you wanted to!

Here is an email that I got:

Feral Cats spread Hookworm, Roundworm, Toxocariasis and are carriers of Leptosporosis, which recently was the cause of death of my 11 year old dog “Buddy” who died a horrible death because of complications due to contracting Leptosporosis from one or all the Feral cats in our neighborhood. This is confirmed and documented. I have been corresponding with the CDC, AMVA, and the FDOH about this issue. Pregnant mothers working in their gardens can get Toxo and lose their fetus, our dogs and cats can contract Lepto as well as humans. You should really do your research before writing an email that is false and misleading. I have hundreds of pages of documents and publications that support my email, you only have your misleading and false words which I can only assume you are a cat lover.

Regards,
Winston

Here are some other articles about stray cats:
stray cat removal
how to catch a stray cat
catch neuter release of stray cats
how many stray cats in America
what to do if you find a litter of kittens