Tracking area’s stray cats can be tricky business

Pictured above, a stray cat sits atop a mattress behind a home on West Fourth Street. Local humane society officials say that tracking the stray cat population in Union County can be difficult.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Chad Williamson)
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Union County has a dog warden to handle stray and unruly dogs, but what is available for cats?
Jim Alloway, executive director for the Union County Humane Society (UCHS), said cats aren’t tracked formally at the UCHS. He said like dogs, they are tracked through phone calls to the organization.
However, he said it’s on the humane society to track any stray cats in the county.
“It’s a great, great question why we don’t (have a cat warden),” Alloway said.
Alloway said the population of stray cats goes up as the county grows. He also said it seems like there are more strays out because it’s more common to see them outside from the spring to autumn after their mating season starting in February and March.
Alloway said the problem with stray cats can be determining if a cat is indeed stray.
He said it’s more obvious when a dog is stray, as they “have a very tough time getting back to their house.”
But with cats, he said they roam farther than a dog will, but they can find their way back home easier.
He also said cats are harder to catch compared to dogs.
“About eight to a dozen times a year, the dog warden or a citizen will bring us a stray animal, and when the owner comes in, they’re furious,” Alloway said.
Though he said there isn’t an uptick in strays, he said they would be hard to track in the first place. He also said resources are a bit limited to help them.
When calling the UCHS, the shelter’s voicemail indicates it cannot take any cats or kittens, and recommends they instead be taken to the Wyandot County Humane Society. Alloway said the humane society never says no to accepting an animal, but “the waiting list could be long.”
He said the content of the voicemail “is not what we should be saying exactly.”
“Wyandot is short-term ‘I need to get rid of the cat this second,’ and that is usually for an owned cat, not a stray cat,” Alloway said. “If it’s one, two or three-days stray, that wouldn’t qualify as a stray to us. If it really is an unhomed cat, we’ll certainly take that cat once we have space for them.”
Alloway said the UCHS is a small facility, and often has a lot of responsibilities to deal with since taking on the services left behind by the shutdown Logan County Humane Society.
He said the UCHS provides regular spay and neutering service to help control the cat population. He said there used to be more frequent trap, neuter and release programs but that was when the shelter had funding for it.