Many Maritime communities are dealing with an exploding cat population but it is quickly becoming a crisis in the town of Antigonish, N.S.
A local group is pleading for help to save a group of stray cats from being put down. The strays are being evicted from a trailer park, but the Homeless Cat Allies of Antigonish are fighting to save them from a grim fate.
“They have to be removed from this trailer park,” says group member Elaine Van Berkel. “Someone has been hired to remove them, and if somebody doesn’t come forward with foster homes or to adopt these little kitties, they’re going to be euthanized.”
But finding shelter for the cats won’t solve the town’s problem with strays. Within the same trailer park, CTV News found another dozen cats rescued by tenants.
Antigonish has a bylaw stating cats can’t roam at large, but what it doesn’t have is a shelter; the local SPCA branch is foster-based.
“If a shelter opened here tomorrow and had space for 50 cats, we could probably fill it in a week,” says Mary Haley of the Antigonish SPCA. “And then what? It’s a band-aid solution at best.”
Town officials were not available for an interview, but one municipal councillor did say more needs to be done to address the issue, which might include opening some sort of shelter.
The Homeless Cat Allies have submitted their own proposal to town officials.
“We need something like the Calgary model, where you actually license your animals and use the revenues from the licences to offer no-cost spaying and neutering,” suggests group member Nelda Armour.
“The whole topic hinges on individual owner responsibility, taking responsibility for what they own,” says Haley. “I personally would like to see a licence-to-own in this province. That may be a long time coming.”
For now, the animal control officer hired to remove the strays from the trailer park is trying to find them homes before resorting to putting them down.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ryan MacDonald
