Parksville Qualicum News
SPCA can’t afford feral cat control

Feral cat issue simmers in French Creek.

Published: February 11, 2010 7:00 PM
A dispute that led to the cessation of a spaying and neutering program in French Creek came about because of a case of mistaken identity, says the manager of the SPCA.

The colony at a home by the harbour in French Creek has approximately 11 members, six of them unaltered. Bill and Lynette Holmes, who rent the property, entered into an agreement with the SPCA to spay and neuter cats they were able to trap on the property.

However, after one successful operation, the SPCA backed out after a second cat was brought in that had already been altered.

“I said it’s possible this could be one of the spayed ones,” Bill Holmes said. “I said, if it is, while you have it sedated, would you mind tipping the ear. That way this mistake will never happen again.”

The cat, said shelter manager Nadine Durante, appears to have come from a second colony at French Creek, one that was identified as being at risk for feline leukemia.

“It was tattooed to another individual,” Durante said. “We can’t tip the ear of a cat that is from another owner. We can’t maim other people’s property. “There is another colony there with the potential for a highly contagious disease that is mixing with this cat colony.”

Durante said the SPCA — hurting financially as many groups are during the economic downturn — can’t afford to continue the program for a colony at high risk of an epidemic.

“We don’t have the funding to provide the spay and neuter program for this colony when it runs a high risk of intermingling with this other colony, that is proven to have this communicable disease.

“At the end of the day, we decided to back out because they didn’t seem to know which cats were theirs or not theirs.”

Holmes is skeptical, however.

“The other colony is separate altogether, on the long finger by the garbage bins,” he said.

“They were supposing it came from the other colony, but that colony stays in that area. Cats do wander and can cross the boundaries of the other colony, but the two colonies are definitely separate.”

AAS feral cat photo