Modesto City Councilman Chris Ricci was pulling into the local WinCo parking lot a short time ago when he saw, “thirty cats eating pizza. It was just kind of sad.”
Ricci had already been hearing from constituents in his district about the high numbers of feral cats throughout their neighborhoods, including the College area near Modesto Junior College, which features lovely Tudor and bungalow-style homes as well as several tasteful mansions, some of them behind high walls and large mature trees.
Though he tends to be more of a dog person than a cat lover, like most of his constituents, Ricci loves animals. He aches when he sees suffering animals of any kind, and he realized in a sudden intense moment that cats were suffering throughout his district in numbers far higher than he had imagined.
“Government isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do,” said Ricci a short time later. He was speaking during a hastily called meeting in downtown Modesto on November 21, when over 150 concerned citizens showed up, even though the meeting was conducted with short notice during working hours.
Ricci explained that the purpose of the meeting was to define the feral cat problem, seek solutions, and begin a campaign for positive change.
“I don’t want to create unrealistic expectations,” said Ricci during the meeting. “Sometimes it takes years to get things done.” Nonetheless, Ricci promised to work with constituents to better manage Modesto’s feral cat population, even while pointing out participation with Stanislaus County would be a crucial factor for success.
Members of the audience said two major factors had contributed to the explosion of feral cat numbers throughout the city and county: dumping cats during the Covid pandemic and a shortage of low cost spay and neuter clinics. Several speakers said they had spent thousands of dollars of their own money on spay and neuter services for cats in their neighborhoods but were unable to keep up with the growing numbers of felines.
Cats can start breeding at four months old, and can average three litters a year, with a typical number of four kittens per litter. It’s easy to see how populations burgeon.
Last year, Australia declared open season on its feral cat population, which is estimated to kill two billion native animals a year. Australia’s draft action plan against what it considers an “invasive species” includes permission for recreational hunters to shoot cats and a program for euthanizing cats caught in the wild.
There are far too many cat lovers in the United States to let such things happen here, but unless we find better control methods, citizens throughout the nation will find our own growing feral cat population too much to bear.
Audience members at the Modesto meeting agreed that the most successful and humane method for managing feral cats is the “TNR” (trap, neuter, release) method favored by such non-profits as Cat Network of Stanislaus. Such programs can’t survive without consistent access to affordable spay and neuter services, however, and Stanislaus County has a severe shortage of such services. Some audience members said they had gone as far away as Fresno or the Bay Area to access affordable services.
While an assistant carefully listed audience-proposed solutions to Modesto’s feral cat crisis, Chris Ricci asked volunteers to help generate a campaign for funding lower cost spay and neuter services throughout the county, among other solutions.
“It’s about love of animals,” said one audience member, to a round of sustained applause.
