(Submitted photo/Mel Rothenburger).

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Cats should be licensed, fixed and allowed to run free

Oct 23, 2021 | 6:45 AM

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, Kamloops has a cat problem. It was ever thus.

The SPCA says the town has a cat overpopulation “crisis.” It says 78 per cent of the BC SPCA’s total feline intake in the Thompson-Nicola region comes from Kamloops. Seriously, that’s what it says.

So, a spay-and-neuter clinic is ramping up again for low-income families who feel they just can’t afford the cost themselves, as well as for feral cats.

I wonder sometimes why people adopt pets if they don’t have the means to properly look after them. Cats are like furniture; they decorate our homes, but we don’t necessarily want to make a big investment in them. When they become inconvenient, we toss them out like disposable diapers.

I cringe when I see people buying cheapo pet food that’s so devoid of nutrition it will probably shorten Fido or Pusskins’ life by at least a couple of years.

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One of the most depressing parts of a veterinarian’s job must be putting down a dog or a cat that could be made healthy with a small expense but whose owners don’t want to, or can’t afford to, spend the money to do it.

Not everybody likes cats. Cats have a reputation of going next door and crapping in our neighbours’ gardens, yowling at night, and killing birds but that’s over-stated. Some people call for mandatory cat licencing, others insist the answer is to keep cats indoors at all times.

I agree with licencing but not with keeping cats in prison. If you’ve ever been in someone’s house who keeps a couple of cats indoors, you’ll likely have been repulsed by the smell of uncleaned litter box.

Cats are predators and they need to roam. Whenever Barney (that’s his nickname; his proper name is Will Feral) leaves a pile of feathers in the hallway I threaten to rip his tail out, but it doesn’t do any good.

Barney’s days are mostly spent sleeping; his nights are spent hunting. It’s a good life, though a chancy one. I figure the risk of becoming a coyote’s meal is worth it in exchange for the freedom of coming and going as he pleases and following his instincts.

The downside of choosing that lifestyle for your cat, of course, is that they have a habit of going missing. The missing-pet sites are full of new listings each day for disappeared cats.

Barney kills five or six birds a year. On the other hand, he snags about 300 mice in the same period of time, happily crunching them up, including their heads, though sometimes leaving innards or hind legs and tails on the carpet for me to clean up. The worst is when he lets a live one go in the house and I have to put out traps.

Overall, though, he pays for his bird carnage with effective mousy control.

Keeping cats locked up in the house does nothing to prevent unscrupulous owners from driving them into the country and dumping them by the side of the road. Almost every cat we’ve ever owned was second-hand, pre-owned by somebody who didn’t care enough.

While we’ve taken in a lot of used cats, we haven’t been able to keep them all. Those we’ve passed on to the SPCA or Humane Society have been fixed beforehand so as to encourage adoption.

One of the reasons cats get little respect is that they’re plentiful. They suffer from the law of supply and demand. They’re cheap and easy to come by. Cat and kitten adoptions have surged during the pandemic but it’s barely a dent in the homeless cat population.

A proper non-profit pet agency might charge up to $200 for a fully vaccinated and spayed or neutered cat or kitten but you don’t have to go far to find somebody with a litter of kittens they’ve hatched at home “because it’s so educational for the kids” and now wants to unload them for free.

Having put zero investment into a cat and ignoring the 15-year commitment involved in ownership, it’s easy to also ignore their health problems and to kick them out of the house when they become an inconvenience.

They say one female cat and its offspring can produce 420,000 kittens in seven years. That’s a pretty compelling number.

Barney hit the jackpot when he moved into our hay shed and later into our home, but millions of other cats are left to suffer and die. And it’s our fault.

Cat licencing would at least produce a new revenue stream for population control, health care and education. The rest is up to us and our humanity.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.