You Ask: A Ragged Band of Feral-Looking Cats; What to Do

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A small, scruffy-looking family living outdoors in a quiet neighborhood in Albany has tugged at a reader who asks Patch what she should do.

This family is feline, and the reader’s question is relevant all over the East Bay.

“The very sick cat & many other feral cats on Evelyn @ Garfield need someone to do more than throw food out on the street!!!!,” writes Karen Schliesser, who sent pictures of her worry, posted here.

“Not sure what to do here. I’ve called Animal Control and they have an entire county to worry about!”

Start by calling animal services or the police

If you’re worried about feral cats or other animals, start by calling your local animal shelter or animal services department, said Marcie Burrell, an animal control officer with the city of Berkeley’s Animal Care Services, which is contracted to serve Albany.

With an emergency, however, such as a seriously wounded or aggressive animal, call the local police, Burrell said.

Burrell said she isn't familiar with the Evelyn and Garfield cats.

Callers to the Berkeley shelter are usually directed to the nonprofit Fix Our Ferals hotline at 510-433-9446, Burrell said. Or shelter staff will contact the organization.

For help with feral cats, Berkeley contracts with Fix Our Ferals, which operates throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties running a “TNR” program, for trap, neuter and release.

The idea, said Rebecca Marsh, the organization's executive director, is that neutering as many feral cats as possible, without housing them in shelters, is a cost-effective, humane approach to population control.

“Our main mission is spay and neutering so we can stop the population explosion,” Marsh said.

A volunteer army of cat caregivers covering Alameda and Contra Costa

A team of roughly 300 Fix Our Ferals volunteers responds to calls doing everything from assessing and trapping cats, to assisting at spay and neuter clinics, to organizing neighbors to provide long-term feeding and care.

“What’s important is that we aren’t perceived as a service. We’re a resource so that neighbors can come in and have the tools to manage the cats on their own,” said Marsh, who estimates there are “thousands and thousands” of feral cats in the two counties.

After spaying or neutering a cat, the organization releases it to the place where it was found. If neighbors can’t be found to feed and monitor cats, volunteers will often take on the responsibility, sometimes commuting from afar, Marsh said.

The organization, which is largely funded by grants and donations, has fixed more than 12,000 cats since it opened in 1998, Marsh said.

Look for an ear notch

Marsh couldn’t say definitively if the cats at Evelyn and Garfield in Albany are among the group's “clients.”

But she pointed to evidence suggesting they may be. Fix Our Ferals notches the ears of all of the cats it’s neutered, to show the procedure has been done. This is common practice among all groups working with ferals, Marsh said.

From the pictures submitted from Schliesser, it looks like the gray cat has an ear notch.

Marsh is checking on the status of the Albany cats, including if anyone is monitoring their health.  Meanwhile, her advice is to avoid feeding these or any feral cats until consulting with Fix Our Ferals to see if they’re in the network.

Making an impact — with more service in the works

The organization doesn't offer general veterinary medical care, but can transport sick cats to shelters who do. It does operate several spay and neuter clinics a year, fixing hundreds of cats at a time, and is close to opening a permanent free or low-cost public clinic in the Richmond-El Cerrito border, near the I-80 and I-580 freeways.

“Nobody will be turned away; any cat brought in will be spayed or neutered,” Marsh said, adding that paying customers will help subsidize the costs for low-income pet owners, and for fixing ferals.

Stay tuned to Patch for more on the clinic when it opens. 

To animal control officer Burrell, Fix Our Ferals is making a huge impact.

“They’re super dedicated," she said. "We used to be inundated with feral kittens; every five minutes someone would bring in a box of kittens - we just don’t get that any more.”

Everybody makes mistakes ... ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email her at emilier@patch.com.