Controlling Feral Cat Colonies

Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:

Transcript

Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:


It’s late at night and Donna Dunn and a couple of friends are sitting in a parked car in a suburban Detroit cemetery.


They’re smoking, eating fast food, and waiting for cats.


“There’s the pregnant female, right there under the truck…”


They’re hoping the cats wander into one of the dozens of live traps they’ve set up. The prize catch is a pregnant female.


“What’d you get? Is it a girl? Yeah, it’s a girl… a pregnant female. Yes! Alright!….”


Donna Dunn is a veterinary technician, who learned about feral cats through her job. She hooked up with a sprawling network of thousands of feline lovers who take care of feral cats living in cat colonies.


Dunn figures there are about 75 wild or abandoned cats wandering the grounds of this cemetery. Some of the cats live in tunnels burrowed in the dirt, or in buildings on the cemetery grounds. Wild cats can also live in vacant buildings or abandoned vehicles. And, Dunn figures, there would soon be a lot more cats if something wasn’t done about it.


“One female will have a minimum of two litters a summer, average litter is five kittens per litter. So you’re looking at 10 kittens average per female in here. The first nine females we took out of here, eight were pregnant. That would’ve produced 40 kittens.”


(Sound of trap)


The trapped cats will spend the night in cages stacked side-by-side in a volunteer’s garage. They’ll go the vet’s in the morning, before they are returned to their feral cat colony. Donna Dunn says the neutered cats are more content, and less likely to fight with other cats and wild animals.


She says “trap, neuter, and release” is a humane alternative to turning strays over to a shelter, where most of the cats would be killed.


But “trap, neuter, and release” is also controversial idea. Critics say it doesn’t really address the problem of feral cats roaming the streets. They say it’s simply not possible to sterilize millions of these cats.


Eileen Liska is with the Michigan Humane Society. She says wild cats have a profound effect on the environment. They can upset the ecological balance of a field or a neighborhood by killing off birds and other wildlife. They can also carry feline leukemia and other diseases. Liska says euthanizing un-adoptable felines is the most compassionate approach.


“Cats living out in the streets equals suffering. I mean, they are suffering. They don’t have proper food sources. They’re exposed to the weather and they’ve got the danger of being attacked, injured or killed by other wildlife, especially when they’re fighting for the same ecological niches. The cats absolutely are in competition with possums, skunks, and raccoons, and raccoons can grow quite large and be quite aggressive and we know that they kill cats that come, that get in their way.”


But Liska also says the growing number of wild cats shows the current approach isn’t working. She wants to raise more money to fund new animal control programs. But she’s not finding a lot of support for a tax to do that among Michigan’s politicians.


Michigan, like most states, requires dogs to be on a leash or fenced in when they’re outside. Farmers demanded the laws at the beginning of the twentieth Century because wild canines were attacking livestock.


There’s no similar cry yet to do something about feral cats, and no one seems to think that licensing cats would begin to get at the problem. Wisconsin proposed allowing hunters to shoot strays. That idea was tabled after animal rights groups protested.


“Right there. See it? Right out here. That’s a little one. Judy, is there food in there? Should I check it?”


Donna Dunn and her friends would like to see every state to adopt trap-neuter-and-release for dealing with stray cats. Until then, she says, her cohorts will try and deal with the problem one cat colony at a time.


For the GLRC, this is Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Winemakers Bugged by Asian Beetle

  • The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle was introduced in 1916 to control aphids. It has since established populations around the country. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:

Transcript

Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It
looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it
invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is
it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:


Ann Sperling goes out to the vineyards every day to check for bugs. She’s the vintner
with Malivoire Winery. Malivoire is a small organic winery in the Niagara Peninsula in
Southern Ontario, just north of the New York State border. There’s one kind of bug in
particular that Ann is hoping she doesn’t see – the multicolored Asian lady beetle.


It was introduced to North American in 1916 to control help aphids on plants. In 1988 in
Louisiana, the ladybug population suddenly started to grow. Scientists still don’t know
what happened to make them reproduce so fast at that time. But in only six years, it
spread as far as the northern states and southern Canada.


The spread of the bug has been very bad for the grape and wine industry. Sperling is
nervous about these ladybugs because she was caught by surprise a few years back. She
didn’t know anything about the problems they would cause to her wine at the time.


“Typically there is a certain number of insects including wasps and things like that that
are harvested with the fruit and it doesn’t cause any problems in the processing. And in
2001 there were these Asian lady beetles and they infected, or affected, the flavor of the
wine, so that there were many wines from that vintage throughout the Niagara peninsula
that had the characteristic flavor and were not saleable.”


The big problem is that Asian ladybugs are the skunks of the insect world. Just like
skunks, they give off a bad smell to discourage predators. And they release a sticky
brown substance from the joints in their body when they’re stressed and they make a real
mess.


At harvest time, there’s a lot of commotion in the vineyards. That’s when the bugs get
really upset, and they leak all over the grapes. They also hang on to the grape clusters
and are pressed into the wine along with the fruit. Sperling says they had to dump half of
their 2001 vintage because it had a bitter taste and a bouquet of raw peanuts.


Because of this, the multicolored Asian Ladybug has become a big problem for wineries
in the Great Lakes region and in the Midwest. It’s such a pressing problem for the wine
industry that the Ontario Grape Growers Association has set up a special task force to
figure out what to do. Gerry Walker is heading up the task force. He says the ladybug
isn’t a problem this time of year, but the populations are being monitored to head off
potential problems during the harvest season.


“First of all, the bug usually is outside the vineyard for most of the season. It’s usually
located in soybean fields or forested areas. It has a wide host range in terms of what
aphid species it will feed on. It primarily feeds on aphids during the growing season,
populations build up and at the end of the growing season when cool temperatures occur
it cues the bug to look for hibernating wintering sites and also to fill up on sugars in order
to hibernate. And so they move to the vineyards as the grapes begin to ripen.”


Asian ladybugs are found across most of the southern part of North America –
everywhere that there is an aphid population.


And there is a connection between soybean fields and vineyards. Here’s why – aphids
like to eat soybeans, and the multicolored Asian ladybeetle likes to eat aphids. When the
soybeans are harvested, the beetles look for new food and move to the vineyards.


Mark Sears is an environmental biologist at the University of Guelph. He’s beginning a
study to find out the movement patterns of the ladybug. He says we can’t get rid of them.
All we can do is control them.


“This beetle’s been here long enough that there’s no way we’re going to eliminate it. We
just want to suppress its numbers so that it isn’t a problem, in this case, in the vineyards.
If we do a good job of suppressing aphids – we’re not going to eliminate them either, but
if we keep them at lower numbers then there’s less food available for beetle populations,
there will be fewer of them to move to vineyards. And therefore we should be able to
contain the problem, not the insect itself.”


Ann Sperling is one of many winemakers who’s happy to see that this major study of the
ladybug is being done. But the invasion of 2001 was also a valuable learning experience.
Sperling says they’re ready if it happens again. Malivoire Winery has bought a shaker
table to dislodge the bugs from the bunches of grapes. They’ll also hire more people to
sort the grapes by hand.


Some people in the wine industry don’t like to talk about the multicolored Asian ladybug.
They’re afraid of tainting the reputation of their wines. Ann Sperling agreed to talk about
it because she thinks there wouldn’t have been as much damage to their 2001 vintage if
they had been better prepared. They haven’t had any big problems since then.


If another large invasion happens now, Malvoire Winery is ready. Ann Sperling hopes
other wineries will learn from their experience.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

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Repelling Christmas Tree Thieves

  • Landscape Manager Jeff Culbertson sprays a Scots pine with thief repellant containing fox urine. The smell isn't too noticeable outdoors... but when a thief drags a conifer indoors, the repellant heats up and makes for a memorable Christmas. Photo by Nanci Ann McIntosh, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Evergreen trees grace forests, campuses, and lawns around the region. Much to the dismay of landscapers and gardeners, some of those trees disappear this time of year, stolen by someone who may not quite get the idea of Christmas cheer. But some universities have found a way to fight tree rustlers. It involves a foul-smelling concoction that makes thieves regret taking a tree. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has the recipe for this nasty, yet effective repellant:

Transcript

Evergreen trees grace forests, campuses, and lawns around the region. And much to the dismay of landscapers and gardeners, some of those trees disappear this time of year, stolen by someone who may not quite get the idea of Christmas cheer. But some universities have found a way to fight tree-rustlers. It involves a foul-smelling concoction that makes thieves regret taking a tree. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has the recipe for this nasty, yet effective repellant:


About fifteen years ago, landscape managers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln had a big problem. Tree thieves were cutting down the best conifers on campus. And the landscapers were getting calls from local residents, whose trees were also disappearing. Dennis Adams is a forester at the University of Nebraska.


“It’d be, you know, trees that have good Christmas tree form, so blue spruce, concolor fir, some of the pines – white pine, scotch pine.”


Some thieves were easy to track. Jeff Culbertson is a landscape manager at the university. He says students were stealing trees during Thanksgiving break… and they weren’t always perfect criminals…


“We’ve had instances where the students, I guess didn’t do a good job or didn’t think anybody cared, but you could find the dragged marks of the tree through the snow to their fraternity or dormitory or something like that so in those cases I think it was pretty easy for them to figure out where the tree went.”


Campus trees are worth hundreds of dollars, so the university was eager to find a solution. Dennis Adams discovered a solution… literally. He found the recipe in an old magazine… 1 part glycerine, 10 parts water, and 2 parts… fox urine.


Jeff Culbertson says the fox urine makes Christmas tree thieves think twice…


“It doesn’t really smell like skunk. Maybe like an extremely strong cat urine sort of smell. Or dog, something that’s very concentrated. But you know normally you’re not going to smell that. So it’s pretty pungent.”


Culbertson says since the University of Nebraska began spraying conifers in the 80s, they haven’t lost many trees. He sprays 50 to 100 Christmas-tree size evergreens each year. He used to wear a plastic spray suit, but now he just keeps the wind at his back.


“When I do the fox urine, I don’t have many volunteers that want to help me with that. So I take on upon myself to do it. They mostly stand away from me, and they probably don’t talk to me too much that day either.”


Culbertson says there is one problem with this technique… when it’s cold out, you don’t notice the smell. So he started adding a dye… he sprays blue or red stripes on the trees where he sprays the fox urine. He says it makes the trees that much less attractive, and serves as a warning. And each year, the university lets the local papers know they’re spraying fox urine again.


But if a thief still chops down a tree and drags it into his house … Culbertson says he won’t likely do it again.


“It would be a smell that you’d have a hard time getting rid of.”


Culbertson recommends the method to anyone with a lot of trees to protect. He says the repellant is pretty affordable, and normally wears off after the Christmas season. Most of the supplies, sometimes even fox urine, can be bought at a garden store.


“I use a small, 3 gallon bottle sprayer, typical sort of garden sprayer people would purchase at the hardware store, garden center… And I try to use hot water. The glycerin is very syrupy kind of like corn syrup. So it helps to loosen it up, heat it up and make it less thick. I mix it up, take it out, and just spray the trees by hand.”


Both Jeff Culbertson and Dennis Adams think thieves are just looking for a cheap tree. But Adams still finds the thefts a little unbelievable.


“I think people have to be pretty desperate to steal a tree for Christmas. That seems like it’s kind of in the anti-Christmas spirit to steal.” (Laughs)


Other campus managers, meanwhile…have cooked up their own people repellant. The University of Idaho adds a few ounces of skunk scent. It makes their mix even more memorable.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Commentary – The Grass Is Always Greener

With warm weather comes America’s annual lawn competition.
Homeowners spend time and money in an effort to achieve a thick, green
carpet of grass, sometimes hiring professionals to apply herbicides,
pesticides, and fertilizers to their yards. Great Lakes Radio
Consortium
commentator, Julia King, is opting out of what she considers an
unhealthy
practice. For this, she hopes to be rewarded: