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Traveling with your pets
October 10, 2004
Wild Things
from The New York Times
By JENNIFER DUNNING
The shadow cats come out at night.
In the daytime, New York's homeless cats are too frightened to
emerge from behind the grated openings where they lurk, or from
the abandoned buildings and overgrown lots where they live. They
listen as trucks and buses roll noisily by, and watch in stealthy
silence as pedestrians go about their chores.
True, there are hints. Somewhere in the city, a child may see a
flash of black, white or orange that disappears in seconds. Tiny
teeth marks will appear on the remains of a fried-chicken lunch
that has been tossed into a corner. Birds will steer clear of one
particular bush, sensing that danger lies beneath its leaves.
But it is the night that is the real domain of the shadow cats,
the time they come alive. Atop a box in a cemetery in southeast
Queens, a snaggletoothed black-and-white veteran named Oreo
guards his kingdom. On Roosevelt Island, Princess YinYang leaps
into the air, a small blur of black and white as she chases
fireflies across the grass. On Grand Street on the Lower East
Side, small coal-black sisters named Topsy and Beebee trot out
behind their mother from an abandoned building to forage for
food.
Commonly known as ferals - their "names'' come courtesy of
observant passers-by - the shadow cats have become an
increasingly visible part of the urban landscape. One reason is
that greater development and density leads to an increase in
abandoned pets and more places for them to hide. Another is that
public awareness of the problem has increased exponentially.
"Our rough estimate would be somewhere between 100,000 and
200,000 feral cats in the five boroughs," said Bryan Kortis,
executive director of Neighborhood Cats, a five-year-old group
that seeks to control the city's feral population through T.N.R.
(trap-neuter-return), a program in which animals are caught,
neutered and placed in homes or returned to their habitat.
Today, according to Mr. Kortis, the typical abandoned cat is
eight months to a year old and unneutered.
"People get these animals when they're kittens,'' he said.
"Then they grow up, and they're not these cute fluffy
things. They spray against the wall. They howl at night. Instead
of just getting them neutered, people abandon them." The
cats have litters, and the litters have litters.
In the last decade, an alphabet soup of rescue groups has sprung
up around the city. They are typically staffed by passionate
animal lovers, many of whom will attend the Neighborhood Cats'
National Feral Cat Summit to be held Saturday (National Feral Cat
Day) at the SLC Conference Center on Seventh Avenue near 29th
Street. (Cats of a much more pampered variety can be seen today
at the Cat Fanciers' Association show at Madison Square Garden.)
Rescue workers are almost pathologically reluctant to identify
neighborhoods where ferals congregate, fearful that doing so will
only encourage further dumping. At the same time, they engage in
intense debates over subjects like no-kill shelters,
sterilization, euthanasia and managed colonies, an approach in
which cats living together are neutered, returned to their
habitat and supervised by human caretakers until they die out
naturally.
Cats Here, Cats There . . .
Until the Depression, life for New York's feral cats was probably
like that of strays in Mediterranean countries today. They roamed
and procreated, living off rats, garbage and the kindness of
strangers. "The difference is that there is a warm climate
there," said Mike Phillips, a choreographer-director and
veterinarian technician who founded the Urban Cat League two
years ago. "The harsh winters here cut down on reproduction,
because the animals couldn't survive.''
Humans also helped control the numbers. Through the 19th century,
strays were rounded up in large numbers, and until late in the
19th century, when the Women's S.P.C.A. in Philadelphia developed
the first humane euthanasia gas chamber for animals, unclaimed
dogs and cats were unceremoniously clubbed to death or crowded
into cages and drowned.
But the rescue scene has changed considerably since the 1950's,
when the glamorous burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee donned sneakers
and climbed over rubble to bring food and water to homeless cats.
In 1957 Judith Scofield founded the pioneering Save a Cat League
in Manhattan. Now the city is home to more than 60 incorporated
animal shelters and rescue groups, according to Mr. Kortis of
Neighborhood Cats, and an equal number of unofficial ones.
In this respect, New York is one of the most advanced cities in
the nation, and its shelter and rescue movement has become
formidably organized under the umbrella of the Mayor's Alliance
for New York City's Animals. But many of the rescuers belong to
ad hoc groups of neighbors, whose war stories are told by Janet
Jensen in her 2002 book "Shadow Cats: Tales From New York
City's Animal Underground.''
New York rescuers come from a wide variety of professions and
income levels. What starts with the seductively kind act of
saving a starving storefront cat or a playful backyard stray
quickly becomes a full-time occupation. There is never only one
cat. But frantic calls to rescue and shelter groups reveal that
most are too overwhelmed to help. So unofficial rescuers join the
ranks of official rescuers, and they fight on many fronts.
Nancy Fahnestock, a middle school teacher who is the treasurer of
the CSM Stray Foundation, based in Kew Gardens, Queens, answers
questions sent to the group's Web site, an activity that she said
made her feel "like the Dear Abby of the feral-cat cyber
world."
CSM's chief feeder is Carole Milker, a legal secretary who is the
foundation's president and whose initials gave the group its
name. Meals are served at the same time seven mornings a week at
the cemetery in southeast Queens, and are greeted by a mob scene
worthy of a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular. Cats race like film
extras from every direction as Ms. Fahnestock's car pulls in. Ms.
Milker calls out to each cat by name as she steps from the car,
puts on latex gloves to protect her own cats from disease, and
doles out wet and dry food, along with vitamin-laced water.
Rob Maloney, a former firefighter, discovered two years ago that
a managed colony was the best way to curb the growing feral
population in the garden of the hospital in Flatbush, Brooklyn,
where he worked as a security chief. Everyone pitched in, from
hospital engineers who built Mylar-lined shelters for the cats to
elderly patients who painted the structures. Cecilia Fortune, a
hospital office worker, dispenses vitamin C, occasional treats of
sardines and, in winter, cod liver oil. Food is purchased in bulk
and on sale, and the hospital provides peroxide and swabs to
treat the cats' cuts.
. . . Cats and Kittens Everywhere
Feral cats know no geography.
On West 136th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell
Jr. Boulevard in Central Harlem, the gentrification that has
produced gleaming renovated brownstones has also spawned a
generation of ferals so fearless that they strut about as
brazenly as pedestrians, even in daytime.
With the whir of construction on abandoned buildings, cats are
being displaced throughout the area and being forced to find
homes wherever they can, much to the chagrin of homeowners. A few
weeks ago, one resident opened her window to find a kitten asleep
in her flower box, an adorable tiger who promptly lunged toward
the screen and started hissing like a snake. All summer, a
homeless cat slept outside on one resident's air-conditioner,
gazing longingly into a bedroom where two pampered house cats
snoozed lazily on the comforter.
Ferals have formed a little outlaw civilization in Riverside
Park, just south of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. Every
morning before dawn, while most humans in the neighborhood are
still asleep, the dozen animals that comprise this pack emerge
from the park and line up on the stone wall along Riverside Drive
in anticipation of the arrival of their prime benefactor, a local
doorman who feeds them wet food before his morning shift.
Things are especially bad in Howard Beach, Queens. The area,
which sits in the shadow of the sleek new AirTrain terminal at
John F. Kennedy Airport and is crisscrossed by numerous small
inlets from Jamaica Bay, has been host to generations of feral
cats, who roam its streets and graze in its yards. In one
section, four cats multiplied to an estimated 30 in a matter of
months. The thick ridges of eight-foot-tall reeds bordering the
swamps are ideal hiding spots.
Much of Howard Beach is not particularly urban. Swans and ducks
swim in its ponds, many families dock boats from their back
porches, and at least one house has a flock of chickens in its
front yard. But the neighborhood is also home to neatly
maintained houses that sit on small, winding streets and are
fronted by lawns enclosed in fences painted a blinding white. And
it is the residents of these houses who are complaining.
By last May, ferals seemed to control the streets. One man could
no longer park in his driveway, thanks to a family of cats that
held court under one of his cars and refused to budge. The
pungent odor of urine from unneutered males and the howls of
females in heat permeated the neighborhood's days and nights.
It was then that Robert Schmidt and his fiancée, Lisa Ranallo,
decided to take action. Mr. Schmidt, who works as a supervisor at
the A.S.P.C.A.'s Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital on the Upper East
Side, and Ms. Ranallo, who used to work for the A.S.P.C.A., lived
near 102nd Street and 160th Avenue, just a few doors from the
neighborhood's most recent feral cat hangout.
Over two nights, the couple set about catching the animals in
humane traps provided by the A.S.P.C.A. After about 30 cats were
caught, an A.S.P.C.A. van arrived in which each of the animals
was spayed or neutered. With the help of the local councilman,
Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., the cats were billeted overnight at the
nearby South Queens Democratic Club. ("While they were
there,'' Mr. Addabbo said, "we registered them as
Democrats.")
The fixed cats were then released, only to be joined by new
arrivals, some of which have taken over an abandoned house near a
bridge. A stroll past Riley's Yacht Club on Russell Street
confirms the cats' presence. Perched on the stern of a grounded
motorboat, a lone, uncollared black tom stared intently at
passers-by.
Some feed off garbage spilling from two battered street bins.
Others have been welcomed by kindly householders, who set out
dishes of food and water in their gardens. Next to one house is
an abandoned shack, its padlocked front door open just enough to
admit cats seeking shelter in the cold or rain. Cats of all
sizes, colors and ages sit curled in one front yard, some boldly
ensconced on stair railings and windowsills.
A few look healthy. Others have swollen bellies from worm
infestation, or discharge from their eyes that signals upper
respiratory infections, highly contagious to cats though not to
humans, that will probably prove fatal. Carcasses of dead cats
have been found in a nearby parking lot and sometimes in front
yards.
But it is another telltale remnant that bothered one resident.
"I have two young children, 5 and 6," said a slender
woman with blond hair who identified herself only as Joanne.
"I can't let them play in the street. But 9 times out of 10,
they can't play in the yard." This is because the cats try
to bury their feces there. "It's messy and yucky,'' she
added. "I can't get it all. The children roll in it. We like
to barbecue, but I have to tell people, 'Don't walk there.' ''
She considered putting out a litter box, but decided that it
would make matters worse.
"The funny thing is,'' she added, "I love animals. I
just don't want them to poop on my lawn. This wasn't a problem
when we moved here in 1998, but since then they have been
multiplying like crazy. I've about had it."
The Beauty in 'Smushed' Faces
Some feral cat stories have a happy ending.
For many years, Cindy Workman, a 42-year-old mixed-media artist
who lives in the garment district, owned a black and white house
cat named Spike. When Spike died last year, at age 13, Ms.
Workman approached her friend Cathe Neukum, a documentary
filmmaker who works with the Urban Cat League, seeking advice
about finding an adoptable feral. Ms. Neukum took her to the
outdoor sanctuary for hard-core ferals near the Lincoln Tunnel
that is run by the League, which has placed cats in settings as
unlikely as the offices of the Roundabout Theater.
Not all of the cats began as adoption material. For a time,
volunteers had to approach a vicious cat they called Dick with
bulletproof gloves, though now, after liberal doses of mackerel
and laxatives, he is extremely friendly. For Ms. Workman, the
League selected a cat more likely to be socialized.
Then she saw a stunted creature with an overbite, a tiny cat who
was four years old but looked like six months, and found him too
delicious to leave behind. She returned to her loft with two
black cats, the large and comparatively confident Roman and also
Bobo, her "little cartoon cat."
"Their faces are a little smushed," Ms. Workman
admitted. "I think they're beautiful, but obviously they're
at the bottom of the beauty pool. They look like bats, or those
things that hang upside down in Australia."
At first the cats hid. Then they stopped hiding, but fled when
strangers approached. They urinated in pots of plant soil instead
of the litter box. When Ms. Workman reprimanded them, they
urinated in other places. At first, they scratched her furniture,
their claws getting stuck in her leather sofa until she covered
their favorite parts with foil.
Ms. Workman was patient, and free with bribes of food. Because
she works at home, she could play with them regularly during the
day.
Roman and Bobo still do not let her pick them up, but they enjoy
being petted, and they no longer hide. Although sudden big
gestures frighten them and they run when they hear loud noises,
they don't run far in the apartment and they come back.
Ms. Workman recently scolded Roman for using plant dirt as
litter, but, she said, "instead of payback, he was fine
about being reprimanded.''
"These guys,'' she added with the satisfaction of a proud
parent, "they're almost 100 percent.''
Jeff VanDam, John Freeman Gill and Andréa Duncan-Mao
contributed reporting for this article.
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