strays and ferals – Page 2

NY Sanctuary Founder, As Many As 100 Cats Feared Dead In ‘Suspicious’ Fire

Chris Arsenault ran back into the fire in an attempt to save more cats and never reemerged.

A man who founded a cat sanctuary to honor the legacy of his deceased son was killed, along with some 100 of the cats he cared for, in a raging fire Monday morning.

Christopher Arsenault, 65, lived on the premises of the Happy Cat sanctuary in Medford, along with about 300 cats he’d saved from euthanasia, dangerous situations and difficult lives as strays.

Firefighters were dispatched a few minutes after 7 am and it took them an hour and 20 minutes to bring the powerful blaze under control. Arsenault was able to get out of the main structure on the Suffolk County, Long Island, compound, but dashed back in to save more of his cats, according to neighbors who witnessed the fire.

Chris Arsenault at Happy Cat sanctuary. Credit: Happy Cat Sanctuary

The Suffolk County homicide and arson investigation squads are assigned to the case, Suffolk police Chief of Detectives William Doherty told the New York Post.

However, it can take weeks for lab results from the state police crime lab in Albany, and fire investigators will need to comb through the remains of the ruined structure and the rubble to find a point of origin.

“It’s too early in the investigation to determine any cause,” Doherty told the Post.

The grounds and facilities at Happy Cat sanctuary were meticulously maintained, but that did not stop some in the community from complaining about the existence of the sanctuary.

Arsenault “vowed to take the unwanted, discarded, homeless [cats], the ones that people were going to euthanize, he refused and he took them into his sanctuary, sometimes for no money at all,” Lisa Jaeger, a local cat rescuer who worked with Arsenault, told NBC New York. “He started the sanctuary [in 2007]. This was his life. He gave his life to save these cats.”

The sanctuary’s Facebook page was flooded with an outpouring of grief on Monday from people who knew and supported Arsenault.

“He was always so concerned about each and every single cat he had in his care. Didn’t matter how many… they were all his babies,” one distraught woman wrote. “To think he literally lost his life trying to save them breaks my heart and makes all the sense in the world that he would never leave them behind.”

Local rescuers and the county SPCA were trying to corral the surviving 200 cats on Monday. Some fled the grounds during the fire and remained unaccounted for, while others remained close to the destroyed sanctuary despite the chaos and the significant amount of activity from first responders.

Despite his efforts, Arsenault was the subject of a harassment campaign on social media from neighbors and a small group of people who alleged Arsenault wasn’t properly caring for cats. There’s no evidence to back up those claims, and Happy Cat has not been the subject of any violations.

A petition on Change.org posted last year demanded a stop to the alleged harassment of Arsenault by neighbors and a local code enforcement officer. It garnered 28,665 verified signatures.

Despite locals standing up for him, Arsenault had found a piece of property in upstate New York and was preparing to move his cats and sanctuary to that location.

John DeBacker, who participates in local trap, neuter, return (TNR) efforts, referenced the push back against Happy Cat in a post about the fire on Monday.

“Despite being harassed for months, he continued to fight for the cats,” the post read, “and I truly hope everyone can screenshot posts from one of the groups that has been harassing him in case arson is connected.”

An outdoor area at Happy Cat sanctuary. Credit: Happy Cat Sanctuary

It’s important to note that there is no evidence connecting any of the critics to the fire, authorities have not commented on the source of the fire, and any speculation about the cause is just that: speculation. It’s also important to emphasize that just because police homicide and arson squads are investigating an incident does not mean either of those crimes has taken place. Authorities won’t know anything for sure until they can thoroughly investigate the fire scene and get lab reports on evidence.

Arsenault himself said he felt compelled to respond to critics last month in a video he posted to Youtube.

“The audacity of these people to call Happy Cat sanctuary a hoarding situation, to be claiming that we’re committing animal abuse and animal neglect,” he said “The cats that I see…these are cats that are out there and have nowhere to go. These are cats that are suffering out there. And this is where sanctuaries come in … Right now [the critics are] just taking a big handful of spaghetti, and they’re just throwing it up against the wall to see what sticks to come after Happy Cat sanctuary.”

Is Scotland Really Considering A Ban On Pet Cats To Protect Wildlife?

A report commissioned by the Scottish government blames cats for killing 27 million birds annually in the country.

“They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom! Except maybe to keep pet cats.”

Mel Gibson’s iconic pre-battle rallying cry as Braveheart’s William Wallace might have to be amended if some Scottish politicians get their way and restrict the ownership of pet cats.

Cat lovers in Scotland were up in arms this week after several reports in Scottish and UK media said the Scottish National Party — Scotland’s most powerful political party, which controls almost half the seats in its parliament — is looking to ban cats in a bid to protect local wildlife.

They point to a recently released Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) report that claims there are some 800,000 outdoor cats roaming the country, and those felines are responsible for 27 million birds every year, in addition to small mammals.

Meanwhile, other Scottish press pushed back on the claim, saying the SNP hasn’t voted to ban cats yet and isn’t really looking to stop people from having pet cats.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. The SAWC report did blame cats for killing tens of millions of animals annually, and it did recommend legislation to limit or prevent people from keeping cats in some areas.

A report from the Scottish government recommends restricting cats to indoors, among other measures. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In addition to a law requiring people to keep their pet cats indoors, the report suggested curfews and, yes, legislation that would forbid people from keeping pet cats if they live in certain places deemed “vulnerable” to feline predatory habits. That means if wildlife biologists identify an endangered bird that nests in an area, for example, people who live there would not be permitted to have pet cats.

However, the report does not call for a general or widespread ban, as some media reports suggested.

The report credited Australia, where several states have enacted strict measures forbidding people from allowing their cats outside, prohibiting them from owning cats in some places, and even embarking on an infamous campaign to kill three million domestic cats by air-dropping sausages laced with a poison that is lethal to felines, but supposedly not harmful to other animals.

That measure preceded several years of “biblical” rodent plagues, with hordes of mice rampaging across entire swaths of the country and causing billions of dollars in damage to residential and commercial property. Cats are, of course, the natural predators of rodents, and domestic cats wouldn’t exist as a species if they weren’t attracted to human settlements where mice and rats feasted on grain reserves.

I haven’t had the chance to take a deep dive into the SAWC report yet, so I don’t know precisely how the commission arrived at the numbers it did, or if the research is original. Hopefully I’ll have a follow up on that soon.

While the truth is somewhere in the middle, so is the solution. People who love cats are happy to voluntarily meet certain guidelines, and they should be, because if we’re uncooperative, someone will eventually turn to compulsion through law. Likewise, concern for the welfare of cats and wild animals aren’t mutually exclusive.

In the meantime, Scotland’s government is likely to spend more money studying the problem before acting.

Through Tears, Young Girl Revives Kitten Succumbing To Cold

A feel-good video about a kitten who was rescued from the brink of death.

The girl in this video found an orange tabby kitten on the verge of death in Hubei, China, and refused to give up on the little one.

Through tears, she used a hair dryer to warm the kitten while her 39-year-old dad filmed her efforts. She was successful! The kitten slowly began to stir and felt well enough after two hours to lap up some milk.

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Temperatures in Hubei can plunge into the 20s and 30s overnight this time of year, so the kitten would have died without the little girl’s intervention.

Scientists Finally Figure Out Why Some Cats Are Orange, PLUS: Are Street Cats Really ‘Taking Over?’

More Americans say they can’t afford to keep their cats because of inflation, leading to an increase in surrendered and dumped cats in some places.

More than 110 years ago, American geneticist Clarence Cook Little developed a theory explaining why some cats have orange coloring and some don’t.

Now Little has been proven correct thanks to the work of separate teams in Japan and the US, which discovered the mechanism that leads to orange coloring, including fully ginger felines as well as calicos and tortoiseshells.

The explanation may be a bit too heavy on genetics for some readers, but essentially the researchers found the specific gene that leads to the growth or orange fur. They’ve known about the gene for a long time, but didn’t realize the totality of its function. Its official name is ARHGAP36, but for the sake of simplicity, scientists are calling it “the orange gene.”

“The orange gene has a known role in hair follicle development, but scientists didn’t previously know it is also involved in pigment production,” a team of geneticists and biotechnologists wrote in The Conversation, a science publication. “This means that a new pathway for pigment production has been discovered, opening the way for exciting and important research into a basic biological process.”

calico cat relaxing on wooden bench outdoors — In partially orange cats like calicos and tortoiseshells, the blotches of color are the result of imperfect gene copies and a secondary pigment-related gene switching “on and off.” Credit: Mehmet Guzel/Pexels

Ginger cats are usually male, but the pigmant can also appear in female cats due to an error in gene copying which deletes one segment of the orange pigment-producing genetic code.

That’s why calicos and tortoiseshells have orange blotches or mixed orange fur. “[T]he orange gene is persistently switched on in orange areas but is mostly switched off in non-orange areas of a cat’s coat,” the authors wrote.

Are there more strays in 2024?

Time magazine has a story examining the problem of stray cats in America’s urban and suburban population centers, why it’s happening, and what can be done about it.

First, might as well get this out of the way: We don’t know if there are “more” cats. The claim that there are more relies on anecdotes, and there’s no hard data to back that up. You have to be highly motivated to invest the time and money into a proper census like the D.C. Cat Count, and it’s an understatement to say most towns and cities are either not willing to do that, or don’t have the resources.

What we do know is there may be more cats in certain areas, with individual shelters in some places reporting record numbers of surrenders and cats scooped up by animal control.

close up of a stray cat on the metal railing — Rescuers say people who can’t afford food, supplies and veterinary care are surrendering or dumping their cats in larger numbers than in years past. Credit: Dou011fu Tunce/Pexels

The story quotes rescuers who say they’ve seen more surrendered pets, as well as data from Shelter Animals Count, which tallies self-reported information from shelters and rescues. The latter says 32 percent of cats taken in were owner surrenders in 2024, compared to 30.5 percent in 2019.

“It’s a combination of people surrendering their pets and people not adopting because they’re not sure they can take on the financial commitment,” Animal Care Centers of NYC’s Katy Hansen told Time.

Rescuers say that’s reflected in their experiences trapping the felines, who are friendly and acclimated to humans.

The people surrendering their pets cite inflation, not only impacting the cost of essentials like food and litter, but also more expensive veterinary care.

The story additionally includes this eye-popping detail:

“At Veterinary Care Group, a private equity-owned practice in Brooklyn, the cost of spaying or neutering a cat has soared to $850 per animal. By contrast, at the nonprofit veterinary clinic Zweigart recently founded in Brooklyn, the cost of spaying or neutering a cat is $225 and a mid-sized dog is $300.”

The lesson here: Steer well clear of veterinary clinics that aren’t vet-owned or are obtuse about their ownership. Private equity groups don’t buy clinics out of love for animals.

a close up shot of a tabby cat — The cost of spay/neuter procedures ranges dramatically at different veterinary practices. Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

As for solutions to local spikes in stray populations, the story doesn’t offer any. It mentions TNR (trap, neuter, return) but only in the context of a lawsuit against the San Diego Humane Society for its neuter/vaccination program.

That said, there probably isn’t a one-size-fits-all technique. What works for a small town won’t necessarily work in a city, and there are dozens of factors that could influence the prevalence of stray cats and colonies. Still, city councils and town boards don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Chances are if they look, they’ll find a municipality similar to their own where locals have successfully stabilized feline populations.

As for the Buddies, I’d live in my car before giving Bud up. He wouldn’t be thrilled about that situation, and we’d have to head south because the winters here are brutal, but as long as Bud has his servant, he’s good.

A previous version of this post incorrectly described cat chromosomes. The story has been updated to remove the error.

Local Politicians Have No Clue How To Manage Cats

Feeding strays is now punishable by a $150 fine in an Ohio town, the latest municipality whose elected leaders chose to ignore expert guidelines on managing feline populations.

Every time the stray cat issue comes up, local town boards and city councils act as if they need to reinvent the wheel.

Imagining that they are the first to deal with this extremely common problem, they make decisions from positions of ignorance, dismissing the concerns of people who actually work with cats. Or they “do the research” and come up with their own ineffective policies instead of simply looking at what other towns and cities have tried in the past.

At least that way, you know what works and what doesn’t, and how much your decision’s going to cost taxpayers.

But that would be the smart thing to do, which is why our local elected leaders don’t do it. Instead they pull stunts like the village board of Mogadore, Ohio, a town of 3,700 about 10 miles east of Akron.

The Mogadore board just passed a law that makes feeding strays and ferals punishable by a fine of up to $150, as if that will stop cats from finding food and breeding.

Tellingly, Mogadore’s elected leaders say their ordinance applies to “wild, stray, or un-owned” cats, which means they don’t understand they’re all the same species.

Apparently neither do the reporters at WOIO, a local news station in Cleveland. A story from the station is confidently incorrect in telling readers “[d]omestic cats that have become wild, meaning live outdoors, roam free, and rarely interact with humans, are also considered feral.”

Stray cat and kitten — Credit: Sami Aksu/Pexels

Felis catus is a domestic animal. By definition a domestic cat is not wild and cannot become wild. Evolution cannot happen to a single animal.

While evolution is a constant process, speciation — wolves becoming dogs, wildcats becoming house cats, wild boar becoming docile farm pigs — is a species-wide shift that takes at least a few hundred years but often much longer, “from human-observable timescales to tens of millions of years” depending on the species.

The whole process results in changes at the genetic level. The transition from wildcats to domestic cats, for example, involved changing only 13 genes.

This is not rocket science, it’s basic stuff we all learned in high school science classes.

But that’s almost beside the point.

Fining people for feeding stray cats, including caretakers who voluntarily manage cat colonies, will not solve the problem. It doesn’t work. It has never worked in any town anywhere in the world.

It also creates a needlessly adversarial relationship with the passionate people doing the hard work of managing the feline population, often thanklessly and at their own expense. Why make enemies of them when they’re doing a public service?

Mogadore’s village board had a representative from Alley Cat Allies and people from local rescues on hand to inform them that fines don’t work, and to offer the humane and effective option of trap, neuter, return. TNR may not be perfect, but it’s better than anything else people have tried.

Mogadore’s board and mayor ignored the experts and went ahead with their plan to fine people instead.

They’re not alone. This happens thousands of times across the US, Europe, Australia and most other places where domestic cats live. Japan and Turkey take a more humane approach, and they’re better for it. But here in the US, we often deal with issues by ignoring precedent and engaging in wishful thinking.

If the residents of Mogadore are lucky, their elected officials will realize their mistake sooner rather than later.