Special Report: Cat Colonies
The population in Yuma is over 93,000 and the cat population is between 8,000 and 10,000.
Sergeant John Allen of Yuma Animal Control said, “It’s almost a daily conversation for me, I get a lot of complaints about the feral cats and the major complaint is that they use the front lawn as a litter box.”
People often come to Yuma to enjoy the warm weather, but find themselves questioning one particular thing. Why are there so many cats? Due to the warmer climate, it’s a breeding haven for felines. It is often the feral cats that are seen roaming the streets of Yuma. While most do not start out feral, a lot of the time these cats come from families that abandoned them and left them without getting them spayed and neutered.
There’s a big difference between feral and domesticated cats. Feral cats are wild and not socialized to people. Domesticated cats on the other hand, can be friendly and don’t see humans as a threat.
“A citizen has called me and said, ‘Hey please help me, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was feeding two cats and now there are thirty of them and I don’t know what to do,'” said Allen.
That is where the colonies come in. A cat colony is a group of cats that live together in a community and are cared for by their colony leader, also known as their care givers. The cats in these colonies are all feral and the objective is to neuter and spay them so they do not continue to reproduce. Nisa Sutton, chairwoman of the group, ‘Feline Friends’ oversees all of the colonies in Yuma.
“Feline friends started about five years ago. A lot of people got together and were trying to figure out how can we solve the problem. People were still feeding cats but not getting them fixed so with the combination of getting them fixed and still feeding them, you can have them around. There good for mice control, rat control and insects,” said Sutton.
There are over 200 cat colonies in the city of Yuma, many of which have 30 to 40 felines per group. Caregivers give these cats food and water on a daily basis.
In 2016, almost 4,000 cats were turned over to the Humane Society of Yuma; the majority being feral through the Trap Neuter and Release (TNR) program. Last year, there were 543 feral cats spayed and neutered at the shelter and that also includes notching of the cats ear, which means the cats have been fixed. The cats are then released back into the wild and to their colonies. The locations of the colonies are kept secret.
“We don’t like to publicize where these colonies are because people will dump cats there and suddenly the cat they didn’t want becomes someone else’s problem,” said Sutton.
While many locals are for these colonies, not everyone is on board. The cities stance on colonies is neutral. Animal Control loans traps for free to citizens. They can then use the traps to turn the cats to the Humane Society in if they become a nuisance.
Allen also adds that animal control has no plans on interfering with the colonies because they are sanctioned by the city.
“We try to maintain the peace because there is two sides to the feral cat issue, those who agree with the program and those who disagree with the program,” said Allen.
Sutton believes that in the long run, ‘Feline Friends’ will have made a significant impact on Yuma. For more information on ‘Cat Colonies’ and the neuter and spay process, you can head to HSOYUMA.COM.
