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Wednesday,March31,2021
Columbia Gorge News
www.columbiagorgenews.com
OPINION
The opinions expressed in the letters below are “your voice,” and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Columbia Gorge News, its staff, publisher or advertisers.
YOUR VOICE
Silent Descent
Stable workforce
A stable workforce is crucial to
the livelihoods of the pear, cherry,
and apple growers in the Columbia
River Gorge. Last week, thanks
to the support of Congressman
Cliff Bentz, the U.S. House passed
H.R. 1603, the Farm Workforce
Modernization Act. While not
perfect, improvements made by this
legislation will help ensure growers
can access the workforce they need
to continue growing and harvesting
their pears, cherries, and apples
now and into the future.
On behalf of the tree fruit
growers in the Gorge, we thank
Congressman Bentz for his support
of family farmers by voting for this
important bipartisan legislation.
We look forward to working with
him and our senators to further
improve upon the bill, so that it can
be passed into law.
Mark Powers
President, Northwest
Horticultural Council
Sensible loss
Take Pounds Off Sensible (TOPS)
support for weight loss: Has the
COVID-19 pandemic become a
weight problem that you are ready
to do something about, like get rid
of it?
Find support and accountability
for your desired changes at a TOPS
meeting. Meetings are held in The
Dalles, Hood River, White Salmon,
and online. Morning or evening
times depending on which chapter
meeting you attend. All TOPS chap-
ters are low cost and offer support
and information. My chapter meets
at Zion church at 10th and Union
streets in The Dalles on Thursday's
at 9 a.m. with a weight in at 8:30
a.m. First meeting is free.
Visit a chapter this week and find
out how TOPS can help you achieve
your weight goals.
Karen Sype
Cascade Locks
Living in fear
My biggest problem with public
mass shootings, besides the death
and destruction, is what it has done
to my psyche. Often when I am in
a public space now, or a business,I
look for my exits and find myself
sizing up potential threats around
me. Maybe this is just my issue but
I think not.
No matter where you live and
what you believe in we get support-
ed in untold ways by the society
Train cars roll behind the sculpture of a cougar at Cascade Locks Marina park. Titled “Silent Descent,” the sculpture is by artist Heather Söderberg-Greene of
Söderberg Gallery and Studio in Cascade Locks.
Mark B. Gibson photo
around us. Grocery store clerks for
example. Or teachers and if you
work in an office.
If we can’t support our society
through laws that promote safety
for everyone, then what truly does
that say about us and our collective
ability to look at complex issues and
move forward with solutions?
Watch the news these days and
you see that each time a mass
shooting happens, it’s shoved under
the rug by making them isolated
incidents. Mass shootings sure have
the appearance of a problem with
multiple symptoms screaming out
to be addressed.
I agree mental health is one area
to focus our attention. But we aren’t
the only country with mental health
issues. Our big difference in the US
is the high gun ownership and ease
of purchase in basically every state.
When you think about how
much we all depend on a safe, well
functioning society, I would think
everyone would want to take the
necessary science-based steps to
implement as much safety and
security as soon as possible.
Frankly, any argument to the
contrary is just kicking this hard
conversation further down the road
of our nation's history.
Avery Hoyt
White Salmon
all are doing an incredible job.
Supporting all the communities in
these trying times is a heroic effort.
Plus, we now get to be better in-
formed of multiple communities in
both Oregon and Washington. That
helps make us all better connect-
ed and to understand what we all
share and where we have unique
concerns.
Thank you so much for your com-
mitment to local reporting.
Les and Sheryl Penney
Dallesport
Thank you
Improvements
to Obamacare
We want to add our thanks to
others for Columbia Gorge News
continuing to keep local reporting
There has been a lot of infor-
alive in the Gorge. Given the double mation in the news about the
challenge of declining support for
relief checks that many people will
local papers and COVID-19, you
receive under the American Rescue
Plan (ARP) recently signed into
law by President Biden. However,
there has not been a great deal of
information in the news about how
the ARP will increase and expand
eligibility for Affordable Care Act
(ACA) premium subsidies for peo-
ple enrolled in marketplace health
plans.
Starting April 1, 2021, people
with healthcare plans purchased
through the exchange will be eligi-
ble for increased subsidies. There
will no longer be an income cliff,
and people with income more than
400 percent of the federal pover-
ty level will be eligible to receive
subsidies.
However, there is a catch. To
qualify for a subsidy, you must have
Continued next page
How to help homeless cats in the Gorge
By Tracie Hornung
■ Once
again, “kitten season” is
upon us. With few resources for
cats in the Columbia River Gorge,
kittens without homes are frequent-
ly born. And this year there will
no doubt be more than in the past
because the year-long pandemic
has forced cat-rescue organizations
to curtail their efforts. But breeding,
of course, continues.
Cats can reproduce as young as
four months old, are capable of
breeding two or three times a year,
and average four kittens per litter.
Therefore, a single pair of cats can
create a population of more than
2,000 in just four years, according
to North Shore Animal League
America.
According to the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals (ASPCA), approximately
860,000 cats in U.S. animal shelters
are euthanized each year.
Although a commonly held belief
is that “cats can take care of them-
selves,” people involved with cat
rescue will tell you otherwise. Sure,
cats are intelligent and resourceful
creatures, but they cannot always
survive busy roads, disease, or lack
of food. Thus, cats relegated to living
permanently outdoors often have
short and/or miserable lives.
How can you help? The two most
useful actions you can take are to
get a pet or homeless cat spayed or
neutered, and to socialize kittens.
Kittens that are not socialized by
about 10 weeks old frequently be-
come wild and unadoptable.
In general, homeless cats come in
three varieties: Friendly, meaning
as kittens they became familiar
with and learned to trust humans;
semi-friendly but skittish, meaning
they probably have been living
alone outside for so long they have
become afraid to trust humans; and
wild, or feral.
If you encounter cats fitting the
skittish or feral description they will
have to be trapped before they can
be fixed. Most rescue organizations
follow the Trap-Neuter-Return
(TNR) protocol endorsed by the
Humane Society, the ASPCA, and
many other reputable animal pro-
tection organizations.
Trap-Neuter-Return is the meth-
od of humanely trapping free-roam-
ing cats, spaying or neutering them,
and returning them to their colony
to live out their lives. TNR also
involves a colony caretaker who
provides food and basic shelter, and
monitors the cats’ health.
TNR stabilizes the population of a
feral colony and, over time, shrinks
it. Several colonies in the Gorge
have been significantly reduced
or eliminated thanks to TNR. And
with the population of cats reduced,
fewer birds are killed, and nuisance
behaviors such as spraying, howling
and fighting are largely eliminated.
Most importantly, the breeding
cycle is broken because no more
kittens are born.
Often people who find feral cats
on their property think the best
solution is to move them elsewhere,
such as a barn home. Although it
do so as soon as possible. Kittens
can often be fixed safely at about
two months old; your veterinari-
an can advise you. An option for
low-income pet-cat owners is Cat
Adoption Team (catadoptionteam.
org) in Sherwood. Also, the Feral
Cat Coalition may resume its
low-cost spay/neuter program for
pets this year. And some vets in the
Gorge accept coupons sponsored
by the Oregon Spay/Neuter Fund
for discounted surgeries.
If you’d like to adopt a cat, doing
so in the Gorge can be perplexing.
You can start by visiting petfinder.
com and typing in the zip code of
the area you wish to search within.
You may find that the cats listed
are being fostered in Portland or
elsewhere. Resources for finding
an adoptable cat here in the Gorge
Photo courtesy of Tracie Hornung include the Home At Last animal
shelter in The Dalles, and the
monthly Adopt-a-Pet page in the
Columbia Gorge News. A number
may seem reasonable, it is often
or feral cats or kittens (not pets),
of pet shelters exist in the Portland
not a solution for the cats. Those
you can fill out Columbia Gorge
area, including The Pixie Project
that are moved from what they
Cat Rescue’s online appointment
(pixieproject.org), Oregon Humane
consider their home territory must form at www.gorgecat.org. CGCR
generally be confined in a safe
provides donation-based spay and Society (oregonhumane.org) and
area out of the elements, and fed
neuter surgeries at its clinic in Lyle. Cat Adoption Team.
Please support these hardwork-
in their new home for about four
Also, the Feral Cat Coalition of
weeks. Anything less, and the cats
Oregon (feralcats.com) operates a
ing groups who are trying to create
will often run away — probably in
donation-based spay/neuter clinic better outcomes for both cats and
search of their previous territory.
in Portland. These groups offer
people. We need to work together to
It’s understandable that people who humane cat traps for a refundable
solve the problem of cat overpopu-
attempt to keep the cats temporar- deposit and will instruct you in
lation in the Gorge.
how to use them. Do not trap a
ily confined begin to feel sorry for
them, but it is in the cats’ best inter- cat until you have confirmed an
Tracie Hornung has been involved
in animal welfare efforts in the
est not to let them out until they are appointment.
If you have a pet cat or kitten that Pacific Northwest for 20 years.
grounded in their new environs.
hasn’t been spayed or neutered,
If you’ve found homeless, stray
Regional news for the Gorge
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