City’s stray cats posing problems

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/03/2009 (6287 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG’S stray cat population has ex­ploded to unacceptable levels, the head of the city’s animal services agency warns as he urges all pet owners to watch their felines as closely as they do their canines.

Winnipeg has anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 cats and there is no way to determine how many are strays, said Tim Dack, chief oper­ating officer of the city’s Animal Services Spe­cial Operating Agency.

Cat owners who refuse to sterilize their pets underestimate the prolific rate of feline repro­duction and must keep closer watch on their ani­mals to combat a growing number of stray cat colonies found along riverbanks and inside aban­doned buildings, Dack said.

"We have these large feral and semi-feral popu­lations of cats that live on their own," Dack told reporters Thursday after his agency presented its annual business plan to city councillors.

"If you have a cat that only shows up at your house every couple of days or every three days, that’s a boarder. That’s not your cat. You have a stray."

The cat-overpopulation problem, which is a continent-wide phenomenon, has created a pub­lic nuisance problem in the form of urine-pol­luted gardens, rising collection costs for animal control services and the increased burden of admitting, feeding and euthanizing cats in shel­ters run by organizations such as the Winnipeg Humane Society.

According to year-end statistics compiled by the humane society, cats admitted to its shelter are almost four times as likely to be euthanized than dogs. The shelter was forced to destroy al­most 2,000 of the nearly 5,900 cats it admitted to the shelter in 2008, a 34-per-cent kill rate.

Only nine per cent of dogs admitted to the shel­ter were killed last year: 161 were euthanized out of 1,723 canine admissions, according to the society’s stats.

The solution to controlling Winnipeg’s cat population lies in more sterilization, said Dack, whose agency plans to launch an education cam­paign designed to convince pet owners to spay and neuter both cats and dogs.

Cats are not licensed in Winnipeg. In contrast, anywhere from 30 to 50 per cent of the dogs in Winnipeg are licensed, as 36,300 canines were registered with the city in 2008 while the city’s overall dog population is estimated at anywhere from 70,000 to 112,000 animals.

Winnipeg’s Animal Services wants to en­courage more pet owners to license their dogs, though even Dack acknowledges some people do not see the benefit of the service — at least not until their dog runs away and their licence facili­tates the safe return of the pet.

Animal Services wanted to raise licence fees for sterilized dogs to $30 this year, but city coun­cil’s alternate service delivery committee voted Friday to cap the fee at $25, up from $22.50 in 2008.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

 

Numbers to give you paws

Some factoids about felines and canines in Winnipeg, according to the city and the Winnipeg Humane Society:

Cats

Estimated cat population in Winnipeg: 100,000 to 200,000

Number of cats with licences: None. Winnipeg does not license cats.

Number of cats admitted to the humane society’s shelter in 2008: 5,870

Number of those cats that were strays: 3,827

Number of cats euthanized by the humane society in 2008: 1,973, or 34 per cent of all cats admitted.

Dogs

Estimated dog population in Winnipeg: 70,000 to 112,000

Number of dogs with licences in 2008: 36,300, according to Winnipeg’s Animal Services Agency.

Proposed cost of a dog licence this year: $25 for sterilized animals or $60 for "intact" animals, pending council approval.

Number of dogs admitted to the humane society’s shelter in 2008: 1,723

Number of those dogs that were strays: 917

Number of dogs euthanized by the humane society in 2008: 161, or nine per cent of all dogs admitted.