It’s cat-a-strophic issue for some Philadelphia residents.
The City of Brotherly Love’s feral cat population has almost reached the 500,000 mark and many locals aren’t happy about it, according to Fox News.
Frustrated residents are fed up with having to clean up cat feces and vomit on their property.
The city’s Animal Care & Control team says it trapped about 60,000 cats in 2017.
The issue: the team releases them back into the neighborhoods where they were found after “fixing” them.
A process known as known as TNR, for trap, neuter and return is practiced in at least 20 states, Fox reported. The method prevents the cats from reproducing.
Cats that are behaviorally adoptable are sent to foster homes.
Why does a feral cat colony on the Delaware River waterfront have city agencies, environmentalists, and cat-lovers pitted against each other? https://t.co/V8HfmxeHNc
— WHYY (@whyy) May 8, 2019
One woman, who calls herself a cat mom, told Fox she has cared for hundreds of strays.
“I’m not going to see them starve,” Jean van Sciver said. “To me, they’re not hurting anything. They have as much right to live as anybody else.”
Contrarily, the station cited a study from Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, which said stray cats kill 2.4 billion native birds and 12.3 billion small mammals across the nation each year.
