Denice Haugen didn’t even like cats, especially strays.
Then Mama showed up pregnant under the deck of the Haugen family’s Marysville home.
After helplessly watching the young feral cat produce three litters in about a year, Haugen recently trapped Mama, had her spayed and then released the cat back into the neighborhood.
Like most converts to the trap-neuter-return philosophy held by feral-cat-colony caretakers, Haugen believes everybody can help deal with the growing problem of wild, homeless cats in Snohomish County.
“It’s easy,” Haugen said. “It doesn’t take much time and it doesn’t cost much money.”
The ultimate goal is to gradually eradicate feral cats, but not by killing them or having them euthanized, said Nancy Wahl, a well-known longtime volunteer in the local feral cat care movement.
Wahl, who helped the Haugens prepare to trap the cats, said she is among dozens of what she calls “crazy cat ladies” in the county, all working to deal with feral cats.
“But it’s people who drive us crazy, not the cats,” Wahl said.
Ferals are the wild, unsocialized offspring of domestic cats and are the result of irresponsible cat owners who abandon their animals or fail to have them spayed or neutered, Wahl said.
What happens, for example, is that a family will pick up a free kitten from a box in front of a grocery store and take it home to their apartment complex where they find they’re not allowed to have pets, Wahl said.
“Then instead of taking the cat to an animal shelter, they just leave it somewhere,” she said.
In a short time, one unspayed feral cat can produce enough offspring to create a real problem, Wahl said.
An article in a recent newsletter distributed by the town of Darrington estimated that in a span of five years, one unspayed cat and her offspring can produce nearly 60,000 unwanted animals.
The feral cat problem is everywhere, but it’s growing most rapidly in north Snohomish County as that area continues to develop.
“As we have grown from a rural town to a suburban city, Arlington has seen an increase in animal-control problems,” assistant city administrator Kristin Banfield said. “We do as much as we can, but it’s really the responsibility of pet owners.”
However, Wahl thinks the feral cat problem is so out of control it has become the responsibility of all, including business owners, who come into contact with feral cats.
“Our goal is to spay and neuter everything that moves,” she said.
Wahl, 53 of Granite Falls, is a critical-care nurse at Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington. Her days off are spent educating property owners and helping them set traps and take care of feral cat colonies.
Most people with feral cat problems have no idea how big the feral cat population is in their area. Wahl said she often gets requests for help dealing with a dozen cats, for example, and it turns out there are twice as many cats.
Wahl discourages people from euthanizing the animals, which she believes is unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Neutering cats takes care of many of the headaches caused by feral toms, such as foul-smelling spraying, yowling and fighting, Wahl said. Neutered and spayed colonies also tend to keep other ferals out of their territories. In addition, feral cat colonies are known to provide good rodent control, she said.
Well aware that many people think feral cats are a cause of the loss of songbirds, Wahl counters that the spread of development is the root cause. Predators such as coyotes that might help control feral cat populations also are pushed out when housing developments go up.
While Wahl has been involved in several successful relocations of feral cat colonies, she believes that after the cats are trapped and spayed or neutered that they should be returned to their adopted habitat.
Feral cats have about the same life span as any outdoor cat and they need help surviving, so caretakers are encouraged to feed them daily.
Some of Wahl’s cat-lady friends foster and tame young kittens born to feral cats, and others provide much-needed volunteer support services such as transporting cats to spay and neuter appointments.
“All it takes to help is concern, compassion and a sense of responsibility,” Wahl said.
At her Marysville home, Haugen and her teenage children also trapped a feral tom cat and a pregnant kitten of Mama’s that the Haugens call Chubby. Earlier the Haugens had captured several of Mama’s progeny in time to adopt two and foster another, a six-week-old male named Tiger.
If she doesn’t keep Tiger, Haugen plans to turn the cat over to Purrfect Pals near Arlington. The cat shelter will neuter the cat when he’s old enough, give him his shots and find him a home, Wahl said.
The Haugens took advantage of free spay and neuter services for feral cats offered by the Northwest Organization for Animal Help near Stanwood. After their surgeries, the cats each had an ear tip clipped for easy identification as a fixed cat.
The organization recently increased the number of free spay and neuter surgeries for feral cats on “Wild Mondays” from 20 a week to 40, said Austin Gates, NOAH’s executive director.
“And we are committed to doing even more,” Gates said. “We can win this.”
Haugen agrees.
Though she doesn’t really want to be called a crazy cat lady, Haugen said she is proud of her recent attempts to control the feral cat problem in her neighborhood and plans to tell others about her experience.
“Mama adopted us and we’ll continue to look out for her,” Haugen said.
Reporter Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427 or gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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