THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996 TAG: 9603120268
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
Senior citizen Pat Marshall says she wants to save a colony of 30 cats she's been feeding behind the Outer Banks Mall for more than seven years.
Nags Head Police Chief Charles Cameron says he wants to protect the public from possible dangers and diseases posed by the feral animals, which he says may number more than 100.
Landscaper Jeff Walton, 19 - bitten by one of the wild cats two weeks ago - said something should be done.
But Nags Head veterinarian D.D. Shumway said the best thing anyone could do for the cats, and the public, is to leave the animals alone.
The cats' fate could be determined this afternoon during a meeting at the Nags Head Police Department.
``Those cats are not a threat to humans. They don't present a nuisance from a public health standpoint or otherwise,'' said Shumway, whose office is in the north wing of the Outer Banks Mall. ``Normally, those cats would be afraid of people. That cat must've felt threatened somehow for it to have bitten someone. Just spaying and neutering the cats that are there will be the best bet to keep their population down.''
Walton disagrees. He was leaning against a dumpster behind the mall while working at the Village at Nags Head on Feb. 27. He put one hand inside the dumpster, he said, while picking up equipment from the ground nearby. ``A cat just jumped up from inside - it must've been trapped in there somehow - and bit the knuckles on my right hand,'' Walton said Monday afternoon from his Manteo home.
``It wasn't that bad of a bite. But it wouldn't stop bleeding. I closed the lid to keep the cat inside until someone could come get it. But by the time I got back, someone else had dumped garbage in there and left the lid open,'' said Walton. ``The cat escaped. So I've had to get six rabies shots so far in my arms and butt. They're not too lovely to have to endure. And I still have two more to go.
``I think the town needs to get those cats under control so no one else gets bit. They need to just trap those animals and get them out of there.''
Marshall and animal activist Karen LeBlanc said such actions won't do any good in the long run. No one could ever catch all of the cats no matter how hard they tried, contended the women. And if town officials remove the animals and relocate them, the cats would soon come back to the same spot.
``They've always been there. That's their home. If you move them, they'll just return to the area they've always lived in,'' said Marshall, 60. ``My cats have never bothered anybody. They've never bitten anybody. I've been feeding them for a long while and I don't know why all of a sudden everybody wants to get rid of these cats.''
An employee of Seamark Foods at the Outer Banks Mall, Marshall said she began feeding the cats in the late 1980s after watching them foraging for food on her way to and from work. She buys dry food from the store, paying for it out of her own pocket. She brings leftover scraps from the deli at the end of the day to supplement the animals' supper. She feeds the wild cats twice a day, seven days a week. And she and other donors have paid for at least 30 of the cats to be spayed or neutered and given all their shots so their population won't increase too much - or infect other animals.
``They're more of less my life, these cats,'' said Marshall, who has been widowed for more than a year and finds the kittens homes. ``They live in the sewer. But I take care of them. They all have names. I know them all. And they won't even let anyone else come near them.''
LeBlanc said she wants to use volunteers to trap the wild animals - then take them to a local clinic to have them spayed or neutered and given the proper shots before re-releasing them to the mall area. A Roanoke Island veternarian has promised to alter and vaccinate female cats for $40 each and male cats for $25, she said. Donors already have called offering funds.
``We'll notch their ears - like Ms. Marshall has been doing - so we can tell which ones already have been fixed,'' LeBlanc said Monday. ``We could trap and take care of those cats in one weekend for about $1,500. The animal shelter euthanizes feral cats that are brought in. We want to kill the crisis - not the animals. The crisis is over population. We want to spay or neuter these cats and let them live their own lives.''
Shumway said he's only aware of one case of rabies ever reported on the Outer Banks. In 1993, he said, a raccoon was diagnosed with the deadly disease. Cats are not frequent rabies carriers, said the doctor.
Chief Cameron said even the possibility of wild cats harming a member of the public is enough to warrant some response on the part of the town.
``I'm extremely concerned that another person may be bitten,'' Cameron said. ``I'm a lover of animals. I want to do everything I can to protect the public - and the welfare of these cats. I want to explore all the alternatives. But the town code says feral cats can't be allowed to be returned to the community. In my opinion, they pose a public health problem.''
Cameron said he's received complaints from citizens and mall merchants about the wild animals. In the past year, he said, the cat population in that area has increased by at least 40, with estimates ranging up to 125 cats. Animal control officers patrolling the shopping center area have caught several unfixed cats, said the chief.
``If those ferral cats can be trapped and relocated to another place outside of town limits, I'm in favor of that,'' Cameron said. ``If Nags Head officials don't do something, though, there will continue to be a population proliferation problem. Even if someone could trap and vaccinate and alter all these cats, it would be almost impossible for us to say whether, if a cat did bite someone, that particular cat already had been given its shots and taken care of.
``I don't want to take a chance of children being bitten by these cats,'' said Cameron. ``It's not illegal to feed a feral cat. But it is illegal for a person who performs ownership activities to allow those animals to run free. Only domesticated house cats are allowed to roam in this town.''
Last week, Outer Banks Mall Manager Kay Holt told Marshall and other animal enthusiasts to stop feeding the stray cats. The dumpster where Walton was bitten was not on mall property, she said. All the animals' dishes and bowls already have been removed from the Outer Banks Mall.
``We've given them 30 days,'' Holt said, ``to trap the cats that they say they're responsible for and get them all out of here.''
KEYWORDS: CATS NAGS HEAD OVERPOPULATION by CNB