Across the country, animal organizations spend time and money to safely trap and neuter feral cats. And today, organizations are raising awareness about those elusive felines.
It’s National Feral Cat Day.
Facility Service maintenance manager, David Perault, has trapped all types of wildlife on campus, including a number of felines.
Perault explained feral cats are similar to wild cats, and they don’t need feed to survive.
In 2003, the University held a meeting discussing how to manage the feral cats on campus.
Since then, Perault said the feline population has declined because the University is replacing or renovating old buildings.
The cats aren’t all gone. Perault said there are still feral cats in the stadium and tunnels underneath LSU.
Last week, he was called to the Union for a removal last week.
“A small feral cat, somehow, got up into a wall and fell down. So, we ended up having to cut the sheetrock out, and I reached in there to grab him out and he kind of grabbed me. I knew he was a feral cat once I reached in there.”
But, sometimes, Perault’s feline missions go belly-up.
“There was a cat one time in a wall at Allen hall. And we started on, I think, the second floor, and we started cutting holes. And every time we heard a cat noise, we said well we’ll go down the next floor, and we cut another. I think we ended up cutting about three holes before we finally realized it was a door opening in back, and every time it opened it goes *cat noises. So, we kind of had to laugh off that one, we was actually tearing the building apart for a cat and it wasn’t there.”
Perault said facility services’ first concern is students’ health and well being, feral cats cause flea outbreaks; it’s a concern for the University.
According to Perault, LSU once paid about $1,500 for flea removal.
Typically, traps are used to ensnare feral cats, but they also use bait.
“Tunafish does wonders, it’ll catch just about everything.”
The University doesn’t kill captured animals; even the boa constrictor Perault caught bare-handed in Kirby Smith. Instead, Facility Services turns them over to organizations that provide medical treatment and release.
Capital Area Animal Welfare Society, a local humane organization, provides a feral cat program focused on trapping, neutering and releasing.
This program lends residents traps, instructs participants on equipment use and offers free veterinary services.
Pam Leavy, the Feral TNR Program Coordinator, said this program issued about 400 vouchers for rabies shots and sterilization this year, and each voucher costs about $45.
Biochemistry freshman, Errol Morgan’s cat, Tootie, was a stray. Although his family sterilized Tootie, Morgan doesn’t think feral or stray cats should be neutered.
“You should let the cats do what they want they are out in nature for a reason. We don’t get humans neutered on purpose and let them out.”
If residents don’t want the spayed cat returned to their neighborhood, the animal welfare society can remove felines, but Leavy said space is limited and she doesn’t want to send the cats to a kill shelter.
Leavy and Perault agreed that feral cats provide pest control.
“You know when we had them in different buildings and stuff, they would keep the mice population down and rodents down but you got to balance that out with the other health problems you get when you have the cats with the fleas and stuff. You get rid of the fleas, get rid of the mice, you know the cats are still there. But it worked out pretty good when we had them here, I don’t know if they were put here on purposely to do that, but it ended up helping the campus out at one time.”
There aren’t any official Feral Cat Day events in the capital city. Leavy explained that she doesn’t have enough volunteers at the society to host an event.