Fewer cats are being killed and more are being reunited with their owners.
Now nearing the end of its second year, Sylvan Lake’s plan for aiding lost and homeless felines is being held up as a model for other communities attempting to come to grips with populations of stray cats.
Operation Turnaround is a collaboration between the Town of Sylvan Lake, its animal control contractor, pet rescue groups that ensure unclaimed animals are vaccinated and spayed or neutered and a PetSmart program that manages the adoptions.
“It’s a group of like-minded entities that have all bought in,” said animal control officer Jim DeBoon, who fosters stray and feral cats at Klassic Kennels, his family-owned facility just north of Red Deer.
Since Jan. 1 of this year, DeBoon has picked up 105 cats in Sylvan Lake, of which 20 are being held in his care. Roughly one-quarter of the cats he picked up in Sylvan Lake this year have been returned to their owners and new homes have been found for all but three of the rest, which were humanely destroyed.
The only cats put down are those either too sick or too dangerous to put up for adoption or sent to a farm, said Janet Sigurdson, president of Paws And Claws Animal Rescue.
Sigurdson said her only reservation about the program is that she believes a higher percentage of the captured cats should be going back to their own homes.
Unfortunately, some people don’t care enough about their cats to go looking or to ask around when they go missing, said Sigurdson.
Enforcement officer Duane Thomas of Alberta Animal Services, contractor for animal control within the City of Red Deer, said his company has picked up just under 800 cats this year, of which roughly nine per cent have been returned to their owners. That is about the average claim rate across the country, said Thomas.
About 16 per cent of the cats taken in were destroyed for health reasons and some were put down because the facility, Riverside Kennels, had run out of room.
Thomas did not have statistics on the total number of cats put down at Riverside Kennels this year.
Another 167 cats were transferred to animal rescue groups, said Thomas.
A number of factors have been elemental in Operation Turnaround’s ability to dramatically reduce the percentage of animals that end up being put down, said Sigurdson.
First of all, she credited DeBoon with having the initiative to help pull various groups together and push for change.
DeBoon provides his facilities as a foster care centre for the cats he captures.
While provincial law requires that he hold animals for only 72 hours before turning them over for adoption, he tends to hold them for a week to 10 days, giving their owners plenty of time to reclaim them, said Sigurdson.
Once the waiting period has expired and as time permits, DeBoon then takes feral and unclaimed domestic cats to a veterinary clinic for vaccination and neutering. His fee to the town of $50 for each cat picked up goes toward those costs, with the balance picked up by the rescue groups that take part in Operation Turnaround.
The animals are returned from the veterinary clinic to DeBoon for care while they recover. Feral cats, considered unsuitable for adoption, are then given to farmers who agree to shelter and feed them in exchange for pest control.
Those cats that will make good house pets are moved to the PetSmart store in Red Deer as space there permits.
The only cats available at PetSmart are those that have come in through accredited animal rescue groups, said Sigurdson. All money received from the adoption fees goes to support animal rescue programs, she said.
Another key element in Operation Turnaround’s success has been the town’s commitment both in cash and in amending its animal control bylaw so that there is equal treatment for dogs and cats, said DeBoon.
Like dogs, feline house pets must be licensed and must not be allowed out of their yards except on a leash, he said.
Ultimately, the winners are the animals for whom new homes are found, whether they are placed with families or put to work on a farm.
Sigurdson said she recognizes that feral cats sent to farms are still at risk of falling into the jaws of wild predators.
However, it’s a chance at survival that they would not otherwise have, she said.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com