SOLUTION SOUGHT FOR CITY'S FERAL CATS ANIMAL ACTIVISTS EXPRESS CONCERN.Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer GLENDALE - City officials said Monday that they plan to work with local animal-rights activists on a plan to remove dozens of feral cats “Stray cat” redirects here. For the band, see Stray Cats. Feral cats are the descendants of domesticated cats that were abandoned by their owners or that strayed into wild areas from their homes. that have overrun 1. overrun - A frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, especially in serial line communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if a silo can hold only two characters and the machine takes a Glendale Water and Power service yard. Elaine Aguilar, assistant to the city manager, said the two sides will work with the Pasadena Humane Society A humane society is a group that aims to stop animal suffering due to cruelty or other reasons. Examples Examples of humane societies include: The Humane Society of the United States, Peninsula Humane Society, American Humane which was founded in 1877 as a network of , which provides animal-control services in Glendale, to provide a ``humane solution'' to the problem. ``The population is becoming so numerous, it's causing safety issues for the cats, employees who work there and the equipment there,'' Aguilar said. ``There was never an intent to completely eradicate every feral cat from the public works public works pl.n. Construction projects, such as highways or dams, financed by public funds and constructed by a government for the benefit or use of the general public. Noun 1. yard, just to reduce them.'' Animal-rights activists say they have worked hard over the past year to capture and neuter neu·ter adj. 1. Having undeveloped or imperfectly developed sexual organs. 2. Sexually undeveloped. n. A castrated animal. v. To castrate or spay. neuter 1. about 20 of the cats. They fear that if the city removes the neutered neu·ter adj. 1. Grammar a. Neither masculine nor feminine in gender. b. Neither active nor passive; intransitive. Used of verbs. 2. a. animals from the site, they will be replaced with unsterilized cats. ``You don't reduce a population of feral cats by removing them because all that's going to create is a vacuum to allow cats to come in from surrounding areas since there's always going to be rats and mice on the premises,'' said Maral Tejirian, a local feral-cat caretaker. ``The only way to stop other unneutered cats from moving in and continuing the breeding cycle is to fix the ones that are there and they will keep the other cats out.'' Councilman Bob Yousefian said the city would work to determine the optimum number of cats per acre and work toward maintaining that number at each of its facilities. Feral-cat advocates believe the city's actions go against the Trap-Neuter-Release program the City Council adopted six weeks ago. The ordinance would allow volunteers to legally trap, sterilize sterilize /ster·i·lize/ (ster´i-liz) 1. to render sterile; to free from microorganisms. 2. to render incapable of reproduction. ster·il·ize v. 1. and return neutered cats to the colony. ``The city of Glendale is shooting themselves in the foot. They haven't even given the program they adopted one month ago a chance on a small scale to see if it works,'' Tejirian said. Animal-welfare supporters want to ensure that the feral cats will not be euthanized - something Aguilar said is not in the plan. ``We have no intention right now to kill any of these animals,'' Aguilar said. The city should work with caretakers on how to manage the feral cats in order to establish a trusting relationship, activists said. ``There's got to be a balance of trust,'' said Chrissi Fernandez. ``How the city addresses this is an indication of how they will address other feral feral untamed; often used in the sense of having escaped from domesticity and run wild. colonies in the future. Naush Boghossian, (818) 546-3306 naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com |
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