Just seconds after Merle Suhayda drove up in her white SUV, Miss Tabby began “meowing” anxiously for her dinner.
The gray female tabby cat followed Suhayda to an empty bowl that was carefully placed near Tureaud Hall but away from both the mocking birds and student traffic.
The cat continued as Suhayda scrubbed her water bowl and finally pulled open a small can of Fancy Feast.
“I wasn’t sure if she’d come out today because she’s been scared by the mocking birds,” Suhayda said. “They’ve dive bombed Miss Tabby. She’s got two bald spots.”
But Miss Tabby, one of the University’s many feral cats, appeared as usual Wednesday to eat the meal Suhayda provides for her and all the other feral or stray cats across campus.
Suhayda, a civil engineering research assistant, is one of the founders of Operation Stray Cat – a non-profit organization designed to spay or neuter and feed the campus’ feral cat population.
According to Alley Cat Allies, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization, feral and stray cats make up about 50 percent of the United States’ total cat population.
With the help of about 12 volunteers, Suhayda drives to specific locations each day to feed about 45 of the feral cats that live on or near campus.
The cats are feral, or weary of people, because they were born stray and never handled, Suhayda said.
“If you don’t handle kittens at birth, they don’t allow you to touch them,” she said.
They act this way for survival. A friendly cat trying to survive on its own would be killed by unfriendly humans or other campus wildlife.
The cats then reproduce so much that a location becomes overpopulated. Nature takes over and soon kittens are born with diseases and deformities.
“I find it really depressing,” Suhayda said.
For this reason, and because Suhayda said she has always had a love for animals, particularly cats, she decided in the 1980s she wanted to help the cat population on campus.
While working on a degree in the late 80s, Suhayda noticed groups of 10 or more cats that seemed to live around Julian Miller and Coates Halls.
“I kept thinking, ‘What are all these cats doing here?'” she said.
Suhayda estimates between 500 and 700 cats called the campus their home at the time despite the fact that no one was feeding them or giving them water.
Vet School Dr. Sarah Lyle predicts college students likely abandoned the original cats. University towns always have high feral cat populations because students leave cats when they move, she said.
Though feral cats live almost everywhere, Suhayda said the large number of campus cats living without care bothered her.
“I just stopped being able to sleep,” she said. “So I started putting water and food out around Coates Hall.”
About a year later, Suhayda’s husband suggested she spay and neuter the cats to prevent overpopulation. So starting with a colony of cats who lived around Julian Miller Hall, Suhayda set out to trap and fix the campus’ entire cat population.
Throughout the years, several people have volunteered and joined Suhayda’s cause, including many vet students, one local veterinary office and one Facility Services worker who supplies Suhayda with all the trapping equipment she needs.
“Through diligence and fortitude, and a true love for cats, we’ve spayed and neutered for more than 10 years,” she said.
The campus feral cat population today numbers only somewhere between the 45 cats Suhayda knowingly cares for and the 80 she estimates live here.
“It’s amazing,” she said. “If anything, it validates the spay, neuter and release program.”
According to Suhayda, the spay, neuter and release concept works on the idea that fixing cats controls cat populations better than trapping and killing stray cats.
Though Associated Veterinary Services Dr. Craig Alberty doesn’t necessarily agree with this concept, he helps Suhayda spay and neuter the campus cats because he feels it is a way he can give back to a community.
Alberty also helps Suhayda because he said she treats cats that are in a special situation. True feral cats must compete with wildlife for their food, while the University’s cats rarely do, he said.
Instead, Suhayda’s work helps to save cats from suffering because spaying and neutering the cats stabilizes the population and prevents the population from stabilizing itself.
Though Alberty has known others who have helped stray or feral cats in the past, Suhayda is the most dedicated person who has done the job.
“In a way I think her job is more difficult than mine,” he said. “It’s more than just dropping off food. [Suhayda and other volunteers] actually have names for these cats and even have to make arrangements for them for holidays.”
The volunteers do this all with their own personal income, Alberty said.
Suhayda admitted the buckets of cat chow and cans of Friskees or Fancy Feast all come from her own budget as she prepared the food for Lily, Daisy, Morris and another black cat that has just recently joined the colony she feeds just north of campus.
Suhayda will soon try to trap the black cat and will end up naming him like almost all of the others she cares for. If he is extremely friendly, she will try to find him a home – something she does with all the kittens or friendly cats she finds.
But she continues the work despite the costs and difficulties of the job.
“It can be really heart breaking, and I’ve shed many tears over many cats, but I could never think of not doing it,” Suhayda said.