The number of feral cats in downtown Haines is growing, but dealing with the problem is trickier than just taking the animals to the Haines Animal Rescue Kennel.
HARK’s policy is to not take in feral cats, which are often aggressive and terrified of humans.
“We do not take in feral cats because feral cats cannot be adopted and we don’t have the space to rehabilitate them here,” said HARK executive director Nicole Swensgard. “We don’t have the space to rehabilitate them for six months.”
Bamboo Room and Pioneer Bar owner Christy Tengs Fowler said feral cats near her restaurant have been multiplying the past two to three years. Fowler said she’s identified three usual suspects – adult cats who hang around year after year.
“They had a little place between the Gold Spot building and the Chisel building,” she said. “(My husband) has actually seen them mating out behind the power plant.”
Casandra Smith, who works for Fowler, recently put out a humane live trap to catch a litter of kittens she had seen running around the restaurant alley.
“I didn’t want them to freeze to death or starve,” Smith said.
Smith, an eight-year resident, said feral cats are a growing concern.
“Every year there are four or five more. They’re spreading now. They’re going down to the police station, and I’m seeing them down by my house now (near the intersection of Old Haines Highway and Second Avenue). Somebody said they’ve seen them at Mosey’s,” Smith said.
Smith has experience working with animals. Before coming to Haines, she worked in Arizona as a veterinary technician at an animal hospital. She also worked for an animal adoption agency.
Smith said she called HARK about a month ago to rent the traps and ask if the organization would take the kittens if she managed to catch them. The animal control officer said yes, they would, but wouldn’t take adult cats, Smith said.
Smith used cans of tuna to lure the animals, and caught four kittens — three Siamese and one medium-hair black kitten. She took the kittens to HARK and kept the traps, hoping to trap two more kittens.
A couple of days after dropping the kittens off, Smith said, she got a call from HARK. “She was like, ‘Give us our traps back right now. We don’t want these kittens. They are too wild.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, well, I can’t bring them to my house,’” Smith said.
Smith started scouring the Internet and making phone calls to rescue shelters and agencies in Juneau and Whitehorse. The Juneau Humane Society gave her a number of the Southeast Alaska Organization for Animals there, which agreed to take the kittens.
HARK paid to have the kittens vaccinated and dewormed, and Smith paid to ship them to Juneau, she said.
“I can understand not wanting to take on wild animals, and yeah, those kittens were freaked out, but by the time I put them in the kennels to go to the airport I was able to hold every single one of them,” Smith said.
As opposed to pet and stray cats, feral cats have not been socialized to people. Adult feral cats can’t be adopted, but kittens of feral adults can sometimes become socialized to humans at an early age and adopted.
Stray cats can be difficult to tell from feral cats when they are frightened or trapped.
HARK director Swensgard said stray animals are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Animals are checked out for health and temperament to see if they can stay at HARK for potential adoption. For example, HARK picked up a cat near the Halsingland Hotel this month that was healthy and friendly. The cat was adopted.
The kittens, however, were too wild to keep, she said. “We weren’t sure how we were going to deal with them because we don’t normally take in feral cats,” Swensgard said.
If a person wants to arrange trapping feral kittens ahead of time, HARK would try to find someone in Haines, Skagway, Juneau or Whitehorse with the time to rehabilitate the animals. HARK just doesn’t have the time, space or manpower for that, Swensgard said.
HARK also practices a policy called “Catch, Neuter, Release,” which doesn’t cut down on the cats running around town but at least keeps them from reproducing. The trouble is arranging for a vet to be in town to perform the procedure.
HARK pays to have stray and feral cats neutered and spayed.