County shelter must turn away stray cats.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Being a lost, feral or unwanted cat has been bad enough up to now, but starting Tuesday, it's going to get even worse.

Because of severe budget cuts, the Lane County Animal Regulation Authority will stop accepting cats altogether at its west Eugene shelter, a prospect that makes manager Mike Wellington unhappy.

"I spent most of the night awake, thinking about it," Wellington said Friday. "This is not a position we like to be in."

He can't even guess what will happen to the 2,500 or so cats the shelter normally takes in each year from the city of Eugene and unincorporated Lane County, but he fears that they will be left to starve, abandoned to join feral colonies or killed by vehicles or animal predators.

By law, LCARA has to provide services for dogs, but - as in many places - cats don't rate a mention in animal regulation law, so shelters in dire financial straits generally cut back there first.

Nor will the Greenhill Humane Society be able to pick up the slack. The humane society accepts only owner-released animals - and strays from the city of Veneta - and has as much as it can handle from those sources.

Like Wellington, the nonprofit shelter's executive director, Johnni Prince, also dreads the future that starts Tuesday.

"It will be a real problem," Prince said in an earlier telephone interview. "There will be nowhere for these cats to go. Many will be dumped or abused. This is a public health issue, a public safety issue, a moral issue."

And a money issue. As Lane County wrestled with its budget woes, it cut support for LCARA substantially but included $35,000 in the budget to run the cattery - on the condition that the city of Eugene, which contracts with the county for animal control, would earmark $45,000 for the same purpose.

However, Eugene's City Council declined to help fund the cattery, and while Mayor Jim Torrey feels badly about that decision, he doesn't blame the council.

"When it comes to cats vs. kids - when budgets are the way they are now - the choice becomes pretty easy," Torrey said. "Frankly, I have a lot of empathy for the cats, but much as I can see the impact of not providing a cattery, it just can't compete with (the needs of) mothers with young children."

Prince fears that Greenhill will "get a lot of fallout and flak" from the county's decision to turn cats away altogether.

"People get us confused with LCARA as it is, and we're open a lot more hours than they are," Prince said. "We know people are going to be desperate and bring cats here, and we're going to have to turn them away, too."

Her organization already has 800 cats and kittens living in foster care homes throughout the community, waiting for permanent homes, Prince said. "We haven't had to euthanize a cat for lack of space in over 18 months."

That's not the case at the county's shelter, where about 400 cats went to adoptive homes last year, but just more than 2,100 were euthanized.

With participation from a task force appointed by the county commissioners to study the problem, the agency hopes to come up with some new ways to raise money to accommodate cats again and lower euthanasia rates for both canines and felines.

A wholesale surcharge on pet food, more rigorous enforcement of dog licensing and a new requirement for cat licensing all have been proposed.

Wellington also hopes to raise as much as $45,000 through a new adopt-a-kennel program, by which individuals, groups and businesses can donate $1,500 and get their names - or the names and photos of their own pets - mounted over one of LCARA's kennel spaces for a year. The proceeds would be used to support low-cost spay-and-neuter programs and pay for medical care for injured animals that come into the shelter.

But none of that will happen overnight, and in the meantime, cats undoubtedly will continue to be lost or abandoned in large numbers, Wellington said.

The only other option he can think of would be to require a fee - such as $15 per adult or $20 per litter - to continue accepting cats at the county shelter, he said.