People are dumping unwanted cats and kittens like never before in the Parksville Qualicum Beach area.
A significant jump was noted over the past few years by CatSpan, a non-profit organization devoted to spaying, neutering, fostering and adopting feral and semi-feral cats.
Active since 1990, the group used to manage a large regional population of truly feral cats, according to Kathy Robinson of CatSpan, but as that population dwindled over the decades, the focus has shifted to recently dumped cats, of which there are many.
“The vast majority of them are either dumped or somebody’s moved away and left them. It’s just been awful since COVID,” Robinson said. “Until a couple of years ago we were handling about 90 cats a year and now we’re doing 250.”
The group was hopeful last year that the issue would improve with the pandemic in the rearview mirror, but 2023 was just as bad as 2022 – and 2024 isn’t shaping up much better.
“This year, it’s March and we’re already up to 50,” Robinson said. “So we’re heading for a couple hundred this year and we haven’t even got to kitten season yet.”
Rural roads are the most common place for cats to be dumped, she added, particularly in Errington, Coombs and Whiskey Creek.
“We get some from in town, but generally what happens is we get someone who doesn’t want a cat and they’ll just take it and dump it on a country road and then it shows up at an acreage,” Robinson said.
A common call to CatSpan involves a stray cat showing up at a home and the owners feed it, not thinking much of it — until it shows up with a litter of kittens.
“And then they start to get a bit panicky and they call us.”
In a case like this, CatSpan will spay the mother cat (people can then have the cat back if they want) and the kittens are adopted.
The veterinary and food costs are huge, Robinson said. By the time a cat has been vaccinated, de-wormed, had a flea treatment and been spayed and neutered, the bill is approximately $400.
“Our vet bill for the last year has been approximately $130,000,” she said. “And then we’ve spent another $20-odd [thousand] in food.”
The organization receives donated food, but Robinson said the high quality kitten food they buy is expensive, approximately $100 for a case of 24 cans, which does not last long, especially during “kitten season”.
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CatSpan is registered charity and is always looking for cash donations, as well as volunteers for fundraising events and people who can host a semi-feral cat on an acreage or farm. More information about donations and other ways to help is available at https://www.catspanferals.com.
Robinson fosters many animals in her own home, and assesses if they are tame enough to be adopted or more suitable for the barn cat program.
People will dump cats for a number of reasons, Robinson said. People will move and leave a cat behind, or an owner dies and the cats winds up on its own. Or someone may simply decide they don’t want a pet anymore and drop it off in the forest.
Recently CatSpan volunteers picked up seven kittens and cats (including a few who were pregnant) from one development.
“They didn’t want them anymore,” Robinson said. “They were selling them, and then of course because nobody wanted them they couldn’t sell them anymore, so they surrendered them to us.”
She added the BC SPCA does not have the staff capacity to socialize cats that have become semi-feral living on their own for a while.
“We have a deal with them. They’ll take the tame ones, we’ll take the feral ones,” she added.
Without the ongoing work by volunteers to spay, neuter and adopt, the issue can spin out of control quickly because the animals multiply surprisingly fast, Robinsons said.
“If we quit, in five years the place would be overrun with feral cats again,” she said. “They’d be living outside and they’d be feral, and then in a couple of generations they’d be truly feral.”