An online survey launched by Cat Rescue Maritimes, or CARMA, is bringing the feral and homeless cat situation in New Brunswick into clearer focus.
The survey is being done over a year to better understand this population, it was launched in March and so far has received 140 responses.
President of CARMA Sue Knight says there are a lot of cats out there having to fend for themselves, struggling to survive and suffering in the process and there is currently no coordinated response to get the situation under control.
“We’ve started this survey so we can get hard data and once we’ve got hard data we can go to all the invested groups…to try to stop this situation of kittens continually being born into less than desirable conditions and the cycle continuing,” says Knight.
When it comes to the health of these animals, nearly 70-percent of respondents reported widespread upper respiratory infection and over 40-percent reported wounds and abcesses. Knight calls the health of these cats the ‘hidden disaster.’
“Cats with bird-shot holes because they’ve been pot-shotted at, hit by cars, that’s the biggie that often pops up. We’ve had ones with really bad ear mites to the point that the cats have scratched the ears so bad that there’s exposed flesh.”
One of the biggest surprises for Knight was that 67-percent of cat colonies are in residential instead of rural locations though she notes that they don’t think the word has gone out to rural communities that they are doing the survey.
“But right now, as the surveys come back it has indicated that most of this problem is in what we call residential areas,” she says.
CARMA wants to hear from anyone taking care of, or who knows of, colonies of cats and you can find the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2017CatSurvey
