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Akron, OH.  Summit County

CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

Akron keeps cats down but gets people riled up.
06/22/03
Michael Sangiacomo
Plain Dealer Reporter

One year ago, City Council passed a controversial law to allow trapping and killing of any unleashed cat off its owner's property.

The result: 1,685 cats caught and 1,279 killed through April 30. The numbers are a point of pride or a source of shame, depending on who's talking.

The Summit County Animal Shelter staff, which handles the trapped animals, said the 1,279 cats killed were either sick or too wild to be domesticated. Four hundred and six were adopted.

The program is a success, said John Hoffman, Akron's director of customer service.

Hoffman said he gets a lot of hate mail from "a small, vocal minority," but believes the "silent majority" of Akron residents favor the effort to control the cat population.

Akron residents willing to post a refundable $25 deposit can ask the city to place a cat trap on their property. When a cat is trapped, the city takes the trapped animal to the shelter. Residents can also buy their own traps, catch the animals and turn them over to the shelter.

"We have 50 traps available to catch the cats," said Hoffman, who noted that all were in constant use. "We are getting so many that we have slowed down the capture process ourselves because there is nowhere to house them."

Deanne Christman-Resch, of the volunteer group Citizens for Humane Animal Practices, is one of the strongest voices of opposition. The group has sued the city to end the program.

A trial is scheduled for September. She views the city's response to complaints about feral cats as a "simplistic and emotional" reaction that will make things worse.

"Scientific studies have shown that trapping feral cats does nothing to solve the problem," she said. "Other cats will simply move in to fill the vacuum left by the missing cat."

A pair of cats and their offspring can produce 50 cats in 18 months and a staggering 300,000 in seven years, humane society sources said.

"That's why removing one or two cats from a colony is a waste of time, besides being cruel," Christman-Resch said.

One alternative she suggested is a trap-neuter-release program like those in many cities, including Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo. Under the program, feral cats are trapped, spayed or neutered, and then returned to the colony.

The colonies grow smaller as older cats die and kittens are prevented, proponents say.

Susan Ross, of the Animal Protective League in Cleveland, said the league's program has handled about 1,000 cats in target areas in Cleveland, Parma Heights and Oakwood.

"It's too early to see a drop-off in population, but that will be obvious in a few years," she said. "Meanwhile, the colonies are being managed."

Hoffman says he doubts the effectiveness of the trap-neuter-release program and has seen no scientific evidence that it works. Christman-Resch said her group gave the city a great deal of scientific evidence, which was either not read or ignored.

"Feral cats lead short, miserable lives," Hoffman said. "We considered [trap-neuter-release] but it does not deal with the specific complaint of the citizens. All this starts with someone complaining that a cat is using a flower bed as a litter box, or getting after garbage, or making noise in the night. [A trap-neuter-release program] does not solve that problem; the cats are still there. If we remove the cat, we remove the problem."

One Akron woman, who requested anonymity, asked the city to trap a cat that had been urinating in her flower garden.

"It stunk, and I was tired of it," she said. "The last straw came when it wet on my newspaper. I had the trap for two or three weeks [in January] and we caught the cat."

Glen James, executive director of the Summit County Animal Shelter, said that of all the 1,685 cats trapped since last June, only one had a collar with identification.

"It's very possible that people who trap the cats remove the collars to prevent the cats from being returned," he said. "Perhaps they don't want the cats to go back to their owners. Anyone who does that should know that it is a crime."

James said trapped cats are observed long enough for shelter workers to determine if they are feral. The cat is left alone in a cage for a time to allow it to calm down from the trauma of being trapped.

A cat is killed if it is deemed feral, looks sick or has a lot of fleas. If the cat is friendly and healthy, it will be held three days to give the owner a chance to claim it. The cat is then put up for adoption for two days. If it is not adopted, it's euthanized.

A cat could be kept longer if space permits.

The shelter has no veterinarian on staff to diagnose or treat sick animals. Unlike many shelters, the Summit County shelter does not require animals to be spayed or neutered for adoption. "It's up to you," a shelter employee said.

James said employees are to encourage spaying or neutering and hand out discount coupons.

Dan Knapp, executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society in Columbus, handles the city's cat program. He said Akron's methods were doomed to failure.

"I was surprised to hear what Akron was doing," he said. "They are welcome to see our program. We spay and release strays but also put many of them up for adoption.

"Frankly, if I would be a taxpayer in Akron, I would be concerned," Knapp continued. "Trapping and euthanizing is cruel and wasteful. They are using tax money to worsen a problem they are trying to solve."

Hoffman said he was not bothered by thousands of letters and e-mails from around the world by people angry at the city's feral cat solution. Recently, the city closed the part of its Web site that allowed people to leave messages because so many were angry diatribes.

One was from Dorit Girash of Windsor, Ontario, who canceled a planned trip to Akron last August to protest the ordinance.

"I would have spent thousands of tourist dollars on that trip," she said. "But I will never set foot in that barbaric city."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

msangiacomo@plaind.com, 216-999-4890

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