FERAL FELINES STAKE OUT L.A.

Byline: Mariel Garza Staff Writer

They trespass on private property with impunity. They steal what they need to survive. They mark their territory with ugly signs. They terrorize those who don't belong to their tight clique.

Gangs of tough ``feral'' cats have been staking out territories in all areas of the city from malls and back yards, freeway underpasses to empty lots. As many as 2 million cats live furtively on the mean streets of Los Angeles - more than one for every two human inhabitants, authorities estimate.

And just like their human counterparts, these cat gangs, or colonies, are often unwanted elements in the community. They are considered public health nuisances and hazards causing noise, smell, a danger to people's domesticated cats and are even suspected of being primary rabies carriers.

``We have feral cat colonies all over the city,'' said Jerry Greenwalt, general manager of the city's Animal Services Department, ``in the Flower Mart, in the harbor ... there are colonies in West L.A., and they have them in the Valley as well.''

These former pets were kicked out of the house and their offspring have established colonies, living hardscrabble lives in alleys, at the beach, under buildings, in the bushes of apartment complexes and town houses, in parks, under bridges - wherever they can find a home out of sight of humans.

Home for 300 cats

``Our cities are running rampant in cat population,'' said Sherry Hackett, a Los Angeles animal activist and rescuer who with her husband, comedian Buddy Hackett, started Singita Animal Sanctuary. The organization on Friday won final approval to build the city's first feral cat sanctuary out on the edge of the northwest San Fernando Valley on city-owned land.

The Singita cat haven at Oat Mountain, the former Nike Missile site, will provide homes for as many as 300 feral cats, in an effort to depopulate the colonies, while operating spay and neuter programs and adoption services for others. But it's just a tiny drop of services in a vat-sized bucket of ever-growing need, Hackett said.

``When you stop to think how many cats are running in our streets in Los Angeles and not only in the country and majority of the cities, but around the world, there is a tremendous need,'' Hackett said.

Unchecked, this population could explode, according to experts who say an unneutered male and female cat couple and their offspring can be responsible for as many as 500,000 births over seven years.

Yet animal activists say little is being done by local authorities to control the population explosion.

The boom is blamed on several factors. First, some cat owners abandon their once-loved pets to the urban wilds rather than turn them over to certain death at the public animal shelters. Also, the scant subsidies available to help people spay and neuter cats at low cost aren't enough.

The result is the emergence of a feral cat underground - people working secretly to rescue, feed or fix feral cats without the knowledge of their neighbors or authorities.

Rescue operations

Pat Winters, a retiree who is spending her golden years running an unofficial rescue operation out of her Sherman Oaks home, gets many appeals from people trying to figure out how to deal with stray cats or cat colonies living in their yards or under their houses.

``There are so many individuals that call daily asking for assistance to do just these type of things,'' Winters said. ``They want to know where to take 'mommy' and get her fixed.''

Often the callers just want to fix the cats and let them go, or find homes for them elsewhere. They don't know what to do, and won't call Animal Services because they know animals trapped by authorities will be euthanized.

But there's little assistance Winters or others like her can offer, since she has as many cats at home as she can accommodate. Winters won't even tell people where she lives for fear that she will be inundated with abandoned animals.

Just last week someone left a cat carrier in Winters' driveway with two adult cats inside, one with a badly infected eye. A note said: ``The owner died. I don't want them killed. Please help me.''

The growing feral cat problem doesn't rank among the most serious public hazards facing Angelenos, as the felines don't menace people and generally stay out of sight. Greenwalt says it's not so much a ``problem'' as a ``challenge.''

``They don't run up and bite people,'' Winters said. ``(But) they definitely can be an annoyance.''

Even the cats' defenders concede they can be quite pesky, particularly during mating season when neighbors are awakened up by the heat-driven caterwauling in the middle of the night. The unfixed male cats will spray on private property to mark their territory, and both sexes will use yards and planters for litter boxes.

Many people say killing the cats or letting them starve to death would be worse than the annoyance of tolerating them. And for that reason, many feed feral cat colonies in secrecy, afraid of their neighbors finding out and calling the authorities.

One 79-year-old-woman in Sun Valley is at wit's end trying to figure out what to do with a colony of cats she inadvertently invited into her yard two years ago.

It all started when the woman, who asked her name not be used so that her neighbors wouldn't rat her out, fed one cute female stray who showed up on the doorstep.

Soon there were two more female cats taking advantage of the handout. The tomcats soon found it out, and suddenly it was a cat carnival in her back yard.

``Then there were all these kittens,'' she said - so many they were hard to count, particularly as they would hide under the house. ``They make an awful mess. And the tomcats spray everywhere.''

Now she is trying to find homes for the cats, as she's become too sick to continue caring for them and worry that they will die. So far, she's not found any private or public agency that can help.

Stories like these are the reason that feral cat activists focus on spay-and-release programs, which they say is the one real solution to curbing the growing feral cat population other than mass extermination.

City policy needed

It would also help for the city to have a established policy on dealing with feral cats and cat colonies, said Kathy Riordan, a member of the city's Animal Services Commission, who on her own made efforts to help feral cats.

The city doesn't have a feral cat policy, though discussion about it nearly came up recently - until a coyote attack that was linked to someone feeding feral cats temporarily shelved the talk, she said.

But if people knew they could get information and help caring for, trapping, spaying and vaccinating feral cats and didn't have to sneak around, she said, it could be a boon for both the cats and the public health.

``We should just put the cards on the table and make it legal, establish guidelines, so people don't have to hide,'' said Riordan, daughter of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who said she intends to bring up discussion of a feral cat policy with the commission again.

Meanwhile, new efforts are being made to depopulate the cat colonies of Los Angeles.

The Singita cat sanctuary's supporters hope it will be a prototype for other cities once it opens next year on Oat Mountain, and spark interest in volunteers and donations, Hackett said. The organization will also incorporate spay and release programs and cat adoptions as part of the services.

And the city's animal services department has found a way to increase its budget for animal sterilization programs for the next fiscal year beginning July 1 during a time of budget cuts. The department added about $150,000 more this year, resulting in $1 million to provide spay and neuter vouchers and fund a van the roams the city providing those service free to low income families.

Mariel Garza, [phone]

mariel.garza(at)dailynews.com