Lee approves code change in effort to stem growing feral cat problem

While the number of wild dogs in Lee County has steadily decreased over the years, the feral cat problem is just getting worse, animal control officials say.

County commissioners recently approved a change to the county's administrative code to allow animal services to use money from the sale of animal collars for spay and neutering programs.

Lee is one of a few counties in the state that dedicates license funds to sterilization programs.

However, county officials already know the code change won't solve the feral cat problem because they've been using the money for that purpose for some time now and the problem still persists, said Scott Trebatoski, director of Lee County Animal Services.

Depending on what estimate is used, there are between 85,000 and 400,000 feral cats on the loose in Lee County, Trebatoski said.

"It probably falls in the middle of those two," he said. "In any case, even if it is 85,000, it's still a big problem."

Female cats can produce an average of three to four litters of four to six cats per year, Trebatoski said. If 85,000 cats in Lee County are not sterilized, and roughly half are female, the math translates to more than a half-million cats in one year.

Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News

Jodi Specht, a Lee County Animal Services officer, transfers a stray cat that was trapped with her litter of kittens to a cage before moving to the Animal Services headquarters in Fort Myers, where it will be assessed for adoption.

It's no wonder why Trebatoski said his department is having a hard time making a dent in the population. The animal services department takes in about 10,000 cats per year at its shelter, he said.

"If it doesn't get nipped on the birth side, I could throw a hundred officers out there and we'd still be behind because I don't know if we could keep up with the birth rate," he said.

The solution, he and other experts said, will have to come from the source of the problem: Humans.

Cat owners who let their fertile felines roam are a huge part of the problem, said Theresa Ink, owner of the nonprofit Affordable Spay/Neuter Clinic in North Fort Myers.

"A lot of people don't have the same commitment to cats as they do with dogs," said Ink, who charges pet owners $30 to spay or neuter their animals and test them for feline leukemia.

"They let them live outside and think just feeding them is enough."

Not only are those owners feeding the feral cat problem, they are breaking the law, Trebatoski said.

Lee County has an ordinance that forbids cat owners from letting their pets run wild, he said. Cats must be kept indoors, according to the ordinance.

Sterilizing cats is proven to shrink the feral population and is money well-spent, Trebatoski said. For every $1 spent on sterilization, the county could save up to $14 over the next 20 years, according to a University of Minnesota study.

By using money from the sale of licenses, Trebatoski hopes to expand sterilization efforts countywide.

He is working on a program that would allow low-income people to go into veterinary clinics to have their animals sterilized for little or no cost. The veterinarians would accept a coupon to do the surgery and the county would reimburse the clinic.

Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News

Jodi Specht, a Lee County Animal Services officer, prepares to weigh a litter of stray kittens caught in Bonita Springs on Thursday morning. These cats will live at the Lee County Animal Services headquarters in Fort Myers for five days before being assessed for adoption. If they weigh under two pounds, they will be euthanized due to the overpopulation of stray and feral cats in Lee County.

Ink does about 6,000 surgeries per year in her clinic. About half of those are cats, she said.

She catches many of them in low-income communities. Often, the cats come in malnourished and disease-ridden, she said.

"I had a little kitten die a few weeks ago from fleas," Ink said. "The fleas sucked all the blood out of him."

Sterilization programs are not only good for the feral cat population but also for the area's bird population, said Pete Quasius, president of the Southwest Florida chapter of the Audubon Society.

Both feral and household cats likely kill hundreds of song birds in Lee County each year, Quasius said.

"Cats are part of our overall problem with exotic species in our habitat," he said. "There is a vast difference between the mortality rate of songbirds where cats are located compared to where there is an absence of cats."