Cat-trapping: the ultimate urban sport

Inspired by weeks of Olympic coverage to try a new sport? Certainly, hurricane dodging is statewide event. But if you’re looking for a challenge that also benefits animals, consider cat trapping. It’s not as easy as catching Aunt Clothilde’s precious minou unaware and spiriting her away for an annual check-up.

Triumphing over feral felines requires patience, cunning, a current tetanus booster and the fortitude to withstand the odor of sardines mixed with the contents of a kitty litter box and the sight of blood (usually your own). It’s a gestalt experience: humane mission, extreme sport and urban safari. And that’s what keeps Margaret Springer and June Pulliam hooked.

“I guess you have to go back to our roots,” Springer says with a laugh. “You’ve caught an animal and outsmarted (it) and are able to stop that reproduction.”

In some areas, residents rely on the feral population to rid the neighborhood of rats, insects and other vermin. It doesn’t take long for the population to careen out of control. Spay USA estimates a single breeding pair of cats can produce 66,000 offspring in six years.

For many years, Springer has fostered adults and kittens for Cat Haven. About a year and half ago, she became concerned her neighbors were plotting to destroy a feral cat colony in a nearby drainage ditch. With help from Spay Baton Rouge, Springer began trapping the stray cats and spaying/neutering them at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. Since she stopped the spread of her neighborhood population, she now spends nearly every weekend coordinating cat trapping for Spay Baton Rouge.

“If you’re feeding any cats, it’s vital that you get it fixed,” Springer advises. “If you don’t, the animals are in danger of being rounded up by Animal Control and put down. We have been able to get cats back from Animal Control with notched ears. They are considered special cats. If you can’t afford it, there are organizations that can help.”

In fact, spay/neuter is such an effective way to control stray cat population, June Pulliam doesn’t want you to know where she lives. Every time the neighborhood receives recognition for its success, another pregnant cat or batch of kittens spontaneously appears. “In some ways, I am glad that they have been abandoned here, where we will care for them, instead of elsewhere where their chances for survival aren’t so good,” Pulliam says.

After she moved into her house 14 years ago, Pulliam fed a mother cat; within a year, there were 30 strays to feed. The neighbors began spaying/neutering the cats at their own expense. Then, Cat Haven started a pilot program to spay every stray in the area. Pulliam has set up feeding stations and keeps tabs on her neighbors’ feral colonies.

Still, controlling the feral population requires constant vigilance. “One night when it was dark and cold, I had set a trap for a black cat,” Pulliam recalls. “I thought I heard something in the trap. I didn’t want to go out see if his ear had been notched; but I went out anyway. I’ve always wondered why hunters get up early in the morning to go out in the cold marsh to wait and shoot at something. I guess this is sort of the same thing but for a different reason. I’m doing it for the neighborhood and make the world a better place.”

There is neither an end to this marathon nor a gold medal, but for Springer and Pulliam, increasing the odds of survival for the city’s feral cat colonies is reward enough.

A cat-trapping playbook

CAAWS, Cat Haven and Spay Baton Rouge coordinate cat-trapping expeditions throughout the city. Alerted to colonies by the people who feed the stray cats, Spay Baton Rouge volunteers trap the cats and transport them to veterinarians, who spay/neuter the animals and clip a small notch in one ear so they are identifiable at a distance. Then, volunteers release the cats back to their habitat.

The premise of cat trapping is simple. The art is in the execution. Typically, the play-by-play goes like this:

Line the inside of the traps with newspaper and the interior of your car with a shower curtain. Meet other cat trappers at a remote spot at dusk, usually the cats’ feeding time. Bait the traps using cans of oily, pungent sardines. Ward off mosquito attacks and quietly lie in wait until you hear a trap snap. Realize the cat ran out of the trap before it snapped. Reset. Wait. Repeat.

If a cat or two is caught, gently lift the trap and place it in your car before the frightened—often hissing, snarling—feline slashes you through the wire cage. Stack the crates with the understanding that both sardine oil and cat detritus will flow through the shredded newspaper-lined cages onto the cats below.

As you pull away from the site, remember: Traps can open in transit. An angry feral cat could prowl your car at any moment—a hazard not widely discussed in drivers ed. Unload the trapped cats in your garage overnight, place them back into the car and drive them to the vet. After surgery, load the dazed, caged critters in the car and release them back to their original environment. Clean the curtain and traps and hope the stench dissipates before the next Spay Day.

Each expedition is truly a unique experience because, as every owner knows, cats play by their own rules.

To volunteer for a cat-trapping expedition, contact CAAWS, Spay Baton Rouge or Cat Haven.

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Besides her 20 years of experience as an editor and writer, Adrian E. Hirsch is a charter board member of Spay Baton Rouge, a nonprofit that spays/neuters feral cats and the pets of low-income residents to stem overpopulation; the Baton Rouge coordinator of Gulf South Golden Retriever Rescue, a nonprofit that rescues golden retrievers from shelters and owners, fosters and finds permanent homes for the dogs; and (along with her twin daughters) a member of Tiger HATS, a n LSU Veterinary School service organization that offers animal-assisted therapy.