It's been well documented here at The Birding Wire and elsewhere that abandoned and feral cats as well as domestic cats permitted to roam outdoors are responsible for billions - that's with a B - of bird and small mammal deaths annually.

And now, a new study indicates that the growing proliferation of feral cat trap-neuter-vaccinate-release (TNVR) programs in some cities and regions of the country and the expansion of colonies of abandoned and ownerless cats could lead to the spread of rabies and other diseases.

Appearing in the online scientific journal Zoonoses and Public Health last week, the article, "Rabies Prevention and Management of Cats in the Context of Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release Programmes," reports that for the past 30 years, cats have been the primary domestic animal linked to human exposure to rabies. And over the past 10 years, the number of feral cat colonies nationally has exploded as animal-protection groups lobby to end the euthanizing of strays.

Authors of the study represented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Bird Conservancy (ABC).

Currently, approximately 300 rabid cats are reported each year in the U.S., according to Jesse Blanton, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
It's estimated that 16 percent of those persons who undergo rabies treatment were exposed to the deadly virus by cats.

Charles Rupprecht, the senior author of the report and director of research for the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, said the growing incidence of rabid cats along with the expansion of TNVR programs could indicate things are on "a collision course."

Until the 1970s, dogs were the primary domestic carrier of rabies, when aggressive rounding-up of strays, vaccination programs and strict municipal ordinances finally helped gain control of canine rabies. That hasn't been the case with cats, he said, and the expansion of feral cat colonies is compounding the problem.

Rupprecht went on to inject one of the most obvious and common sense evaluations of what's wrong with those ludicrous TNVR programs championed by misguided cat lovers that we've heard or read up to this point.

"We didn't think it was OK to have (stray) dogs, but we think it's OK to create artificial cat colonies where they're exposed to wildlife that can transmit rabies," he said.

"Bingo!!" we say.

Beyond the peer-reviewed study authored by scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) earlier this year indicating that bird mortality caused by free-roaming feral and outdoor cats is estimated to be 1.4 to 3.7 billion, it's difficult to comprehend how some cities and counties continue permit - and SUBSIDIZE - TNVR programs.

The thought of permitting - and encouraging - packs of stray and ownerless dogs in our communities wouldn't gain a whit of support from city councils or county commissions. So why on earth promote it for cats, given the wealth of evidence that it's unhealthy, harmful, and so devastating to songbirds and ground nesters?

-J.R. Absher
Editor, The Birding Wire

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