A4 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015
COMMUNITY
Stray cats strut until cages shut
Rescuers fi ght
to stay ahead of
increasing cat
population in
Hermiston
6TAFF 3H2T2 %< (.-. HA55,6
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
For the network of
people who are taking
hundreds of stray cats off
the streets in Hermiston
each year, nothing is more
frustrating than hearing
someone say letting their
cat roam free without be-
ing spayed or neutered is
“no big deal.”
It is a big deal, Cat Uto-
pia director Cindy Spiess
said. It’s a big deal be-
cause cats can have three
litters a year, meaning
one male and one female
can have 400,000 descen-
dants in seven years.
“I don’t think the com-
munity at large has any
idea the number of stray
and abandoned animals
here,” she said.
Cat Utopia is a Pend-
leton-based rescue, but
Spiess said 60 percent of
the 342 cats taken in by
the organization during
the last 12 months were
from Hermiston. That
doesn’t count hundreds
more taken in by Pet Res-
cue, PAWS, Fuzzballs,
the Purrfection Crew and
a number of private indi-
viduals in a fight to slow
the rising tide of feral and
abandoned cats in Herm-
iston.
One of those individu-
als is Marie Johnson. She
got involved in cat rescue
a couple of years ago,
when she found a litter
of 13 kittens in her boy-
friend’s truck. She was
new in town, but when
she asked around for help
in finding the kittens a
home she met Spiess.
When she realized how
overwhelmed places like
Cat Utopia were she de-
cided to do what she could
to help. Working mostly
through Facebook, she
said she managed to find
foster homes or facilitate
the adoption of more than
100 kittens this summer.
“I’m the crazy cat
lady,” she said, shrug-
ging. “I’ve embraced it.”
She also spends hours
each week trapping adult
cats for spaying and neu-
tering through Cat Uto-
pia’s program and then
releasing them back onto
the streets. In the last
year Cat Utopia altered
392 cats from Hermiston,
while PAWS did 170 and
Purrfection Crew did 150.
Spiess said people are
often surprised when Cat
Utopia releases feral cats,
but socializing an adult
cat that didn’t grow up
domesticated is a long
process and releasing the
cat back into its home ter-
ritory will keep other cats
from inevitably moving
into the area.
Spiess and Johnson
Marie Johnson of Hermiston sets a cat trap at a residence off
of Baxter Road east of Hermiston.
6TAFF 3H2T2 %< (.-. HA55,6
Marie Johnson of Hermiston places water in a cat trap while setting traps at a home off of
Baxter Road outside of Hermiston.
have plenty of stories
from their trapping ad-
ventures. Once some-
one called and said they
thought they had a colony
of about 40 cats on their
property. Four days later
volunteers had trapped
117 cats, all the same col-
or. Another time Johnson
brought home a feral cat
that was recovering from
surgery and found the
trap empty the next morn-
ing. A few days later she
found the cat across town
in her old territory.
“The doors were shut,”
Johnson said. “I still have
no idea how she did it.”
They have a few sto-
ries about human be-
havior too. Johnson said
recently she found a Sia-
mese cat that was clearly
domesticated and asked
around on Facebook if
anyone was missing the
cat. A man messaged
her and told her that he
had moved and couldn’t
keep the cat so he had let
it go.
“It’s not my problem
anymore,” he told her.
Spiess said it’s a com-
mon misconception that
cats who were raised in
a home their whole lives
know how to hunt when
suddenly left to fend for
themselves. It’s not un-
common to pick up cats
that are close to starva-
tion, she said, but that
doesn’t stop people from
illegally
abandoning
them.
“People are really bad
about calling and saying
‘I need a home for these
cats now,’ and we get
threats that people are go-
ing to dump them, going
to kill them if we don’t
take them now,” Spiess
said.
She said right now
the closest low-cost spay
and neuter clinic is in the
Tri-Cities, but Cat Utopia
is shopping around for
land in the Hermiston or
Stanfield area to build its
own.
Spiess and Johnson
both said they could use
help. They’re always
looking for foster homes
to take kittens for two
weeks at a time before
they are taken to the Or-
egon Humane Society,
PetCo in the Tri-Cities or
a local organization to be
put up for adoption. But
if that sounds like too
much of a commitment,
they said small things
like going out and setting
up traps, donating food
or transporting a litter of
kittens from Hermiston to
Pendleton can be a huge
help.
The biggest help of all,
of course, is being a re-
sponsible pet owner.
“Please spay and neu-
ter your cats,” Spiess
said. “It comes down to
a responsibility to your
community.”
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VOLUME 109 ɿ NUMBER 62
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