FERAL CATS - When cats run wild

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When cats run wild
An army of kitty lovers cares for feral felines

Katherine Seligman, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, July 23, 2001


This pensive feral cat, a denizen of Golden Gate Park, perched on a tree to wait for food provided by a network of cat lovers. Chronicle photo by Vince Maggiora

San Francisco -- It's barely 8 a.m. when Paula Kotakis swings her car to the curb along a quiet road in Golden Gate Park.

She grabs a plastic jug of water and tub of cat food, then climbs a hill until she reaches a shaggy eucalyptus. There, waiting as always, are Leon and Victor, purring and rubbing against each other like two housecats in front of the refrigerator.

Their tiny feral colony lives largely unnoticed, save for the human colony that shows up each morning to deliver clean water and food -- carefully concealed in plastic trash cans turned sideways.

Kotakis goes through more than 20 pounds of chow weekly at five locations in the park. On "big days," she feeds 24 cats.

In the span of one week, Leon and Victor are tended by two software engineers, a former social worker, Web site manager and Kotakis, a museum guard who works the night shift. They weren't acquainted until -- in the way that urbanites are drawn together by fate, tragedy, serendipity or bus schedules -- they met because of a cluster of wild cats.

Well aware that many see the cats as pests or worse, they try to avoid attention -- a hallmark of the feral cat community, along with odd hours and a dedication so intense some refuse to leave town for a vacation.

They want the location of feeding stations kept quiet. And they would rather not talk about the vandalism at some sites or the cut glass someone left behind. Some venture out late at night or discreetly hang food on trees, their work becoming a sort of feral underground railroad.


In Golden Gate Park a feral cat enjoyed a plate of food left for it by cat lovers. Chronicle photo by Vince Maggiora

Officials at one Bay Area cemetery say publicity would lead to more cat dumping and alienate a longtime feeder known as The Cat Lady, who identifies her colony by where they reside -- the "Jewish cats," the "Catholic cats," the "mausoleum cats."

But Leon and Victor are part of an urban story as old as Egypt, where cats were first cultivated as pets. Four thousand years later, the cat population in the United States is estimated at about 100 million -- and growing.

A breeding pair can produce, hypothetically, 420,000 kittens in seven years.

An eccentric animal collector made news in late May when the two unfixed cats she left in a Petaluma house bred themselves into a pack of close to 200 in only five years.

CATS ARE UBIQUITOUS

Three out of 10 homes have at least one cat, census figures show. But at least 40 percent of this country's cats, say animal advocacy groups, are abandoned or the offspring of strays. They are feral.

The word has a way of inflaming passions wherever cats congregate -- which could be anywhere. Although they look like they could answer to "Fluffy," ferals balk at human contact. Animal behaviorists note no domestic animal reverts so quickly to the wild.

Their human neighbors either love them -- there are 15 advocacy groups in California alone -- or want them removed.

Bird lovers, who insist they aren't anti-cat, argue that felines -- having fangs and instincts -- kill birds and disrupt the ecology.

"I've been a cat person all my life," said Arthur Feinstein, executive director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society. "The destruction they do is quite enormous, millions of birds a year in the United States."

NEUTERING IS PART OF KITTY CARE

Feral cat people, who insist they aren't anti-bird, say they don't merely feed -- they get cats neutered as well.

"What's seen in our society is that if you're a cat lover, you're the little old lady in tennis shoes and something must not be quite right with you, " said Becky Robinson, national director of Alley Cat Allies, based in Washington D.C. "But this is bigger than crazy Aunt Mabel. That's one of the biggest myths."

These days, the high-pitched yowling of cats signifies one thing -- the arrival of more ferals. Summer is the height of kitten season, the time when the SPCA's free spay and neuter clinic resembles a crowded city hospital emergency room. Cages line the waiting area.

In April and May, 370 ferals were fixed there. Those too ill to be freed are euthanized but the rest are released where they were trapped, all with notched ears to indicate they have been fixed. The city's Animal Care and Control put to sleep 120 strays last year, most of them feral.

The SPCA, which runs a Feral Cat Assistance Program, provides traps and advice, and maintains a network of about 65 volunteers -- an effort workers fear may be threatened by SPCA cutbacks. Vets have fixed more than 9,000 cats (with private clinics fixing others for free) since 1993, the beginning of the program.


George and Julie Finklang carry a bag of cat food and water as they make their rounds in Golden Gate Park. Like scores of other feral cat lovers in San Francisco, they usually carry out their mission in secret, at night or early in the morning. Chronicle photo by Vince Maggiora

"If you're up in the middle of the night but you're too old to go dancing, you can trap a cat. . . . It has all the thrill of big-game hunting," said Jawj Greenwald, a partly retired civil rights lawyer who brought in 21 cats one week and has been known to trap unfixed felines outside a restaurant while she's inside dining.

SECRET CAT SAVING MISSIONS

What would motivate someone to get up at dawn, put on a floppy hat and old sneakers for the privilege of spending $400 a month of her own money to feed and get medical help for wild cats?

"I love them," said a San Francisco nurse who works part time so she can feed 70 or so cats a day. "They have a way of endearing themselves. If things weren't so bad for them, maybe I wouldn't be so motivated.'

She doesn't want her name used, she said, because "a lot of people don't like cats and they don't like you feeding them. You have to be discreet. People will harass you."

Few are as dedicated as Haight resident Martha Hoffman, a former social worker, who jokes that she's become a "cat social worker."

For her, it all began with one cat she helped trap in her own neighborhood. Now she's considered by some the "grand matriarch" of the San Francisco feral pipeline, a network linked mostly in cyberspace to feed, trap and work to fix hundreds of felines.


Feral cat feeders in Golden Gate Park like George Finklang carefully stow food bowls away from hungry birds so hundreds of cats can feast. Chronicle photo by Vince Maggiora

"I got into it because I am a responsible person," said Hoffman. "When I see a problem in front of my eyes, I do something about it. That's why I was a social worker."

A landscaper by trade, Hoffman joins Kotakis and others to feed several colonies in Golden Gate Park each week. She also traps in parks and backyards.

"I love the strategy," she said. "I like to outwit and be successful. It's like a chess game."

Dario Sacchi, an office furniture repairman in San Francisco, feeds at several spots on Treasure Island, home to one of the Bay Area's largest colonies. Many of the estimated 100 ferals there dine in small plastic custom "condos," courtesy of Sacchi. Each is carefully placed out of sight and protected from the elements.

To call him a "cat person" is an understatement. He likes them so much he has a houseful. "Too many, more than is legal," is all he'll divulge. Let's put it this way: There are enough to organize themselves into distinct colonies inside his house.

"I feel sorry for these poor animals," said Sacchi, of the Treasure Island colony.

PARK DWELLING FERALS

In Golden Gate Park, Kotakis and Hoffman readily recognize the cats they feed. Victor and Leon hungrily down their food and clamber up another hill.

A dozen cats appear, diminutive acrobats on low tree branches, tentatively peering from behind clumps of leaves. A gray cat jumps down and rolls on its back in the dirt. Another stands still, its tail upright in anticipation. They have various names, depending on who feeds them.

"To some people, that orange one is Thomas, but I just call him Kitty," said Hoffman.

She considers this particular colony under control. Each cat has been fixed and there haven't been kittens in at least two years. Just like a successful social worker, Hoffman would consider her work here a success if she puts herself out of business -- meaning the cats have no more offspring.

A calico-mix cat lives at the next site, but Kotakis and Hoffman have been working to integrate it with the previous colony. Each week they move the bowl closer to where the others eat.

The last stop is a loosely organized colony near the west end. Wheezer, recovered from a facial abscess, steps out. Now she breathes like an asthmatic, with a runny nose and face only a cat social worker would appreciate.

She lives not far from Buster, a gray cat, and Polar Bear, 25 pounds of white fur with blue eyes and lion-sized paws.

"I just love these two," Kotakis said. "You can just come here and they're always here. If you're down, you know they're here. There is so much love."

She pauses. "Of course, it's just the food they want."

E-mail Katherine Seligman at at kseligman@sfchronicle.com.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Answers

I always wish I could do more, I get choked up reading this stuff. but I do what I can.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

We added to our barn cat collection this year. A yellow male started living here and the other cats didn't run him off. We happened to catch him in a live trap we had set for the fox, so we took the opportunity to take him to the vet for shots and neutering. He was not a happy camper with us, but at least now he has pretty much quit beating up a couple of the cats that have been here for a while.

Because this cat is wild, the vet's office said it was a vet only endeavor :) He must have been a challenge to handle. He won't come near us yet, but he doesn't run either.

We neuter all of the males, but we keep a couple of females complete. One only has 2-3 kittens a year and we tend to lose about that many due to the road, coyotes, etc. The other has yet to have any kittens (she runs away from any cat that doesn't belong here).

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001


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