OBSERVER Photo by Gregory Bacon Pictured is Alisha Briggs and Tim Ross with Little Angels Animal Sanctuary, holding a kitten they hope to adopt out that was captured in Mayville. The organization traps, vaccinates, fixes and either releases feral cats and kittens or adopts them out if they are tame.

MAYVILLE — A growing feral cat problem may be addressed later this month.

For the last couple of months, Little Angels Animal Sanctuary has been visiting the Mayville Village Board, talking about the problem of feral cats in the village. The nonprofit organization is seeking permission to go on public property to capture, vaccinate and neuter feral cats, and then re-release them where they were captured.

Tim Ross, an attorney who spoke on behalf of Little Angels at the board’s meeting in July, noted that one weekend their organization captured 10 adult feral cats and five kittens on private properties in a three-block area downtown. Seven of the adults were females, one of which was pregnant at the time.

“We really were just scratching the surface,” he said.

According to Ross, a female cat will generally breed twice a year, producing three kittens per litter. Before the end of the year, any females in the first litter of kittens can also breed.

Ross also noted how unfixed, unvaccinated cats can also spread many diseases, including rabies. Those cats can spread disease to house cats, other pets or even humans.

Along with permission to go on public property, Little Angels is seeking funds. Ross noted that to fix a feral cat it costs $55 for a male and $75 for a female. Rabies shots cost $10 and distemper shots costs $10. To treat the cats for worms, fleas and other parasites it costs $12. There are additional costs if a cat has distemper before being caught or has feline leukemia.

Ross believes the village needs to address this.

“It’s not just the danger to household pets, it’s not just an aesthetic issue, it’s a public health issue,” he argued. “Any time you get a complaint from a citizen about feral cats, that’s what we call being put on notice. You don’t want to have been put on notice and then someone catches rabies.”

Alisha Briggs with Little Angels works with the cats that are captured. She said within a couple of days they can tell if a cat is feral or not. Feral cats cannot be tamed; however, kittens that are captured have a chance of being trained. They work to adopt out the kittens that aren’t wild. Feral cats, meanwhile, get their ear tipped and are returned to where they came from.

“Obviously, it’s not a perfect solution to trap, vaccinate, neuter and release, but it will reduce the cat population so that it will not continue to grow and grow and grow,” she said.

Little Sanctuary representatives said they don’t have the ability to keep feral cats, which is why they’re released after they’ve been captured and spayed/neutered. Eventually the released cats die off after being hit by cars or attacked by wild predators. But even if they aren’t killed, they won’t be able to continue to repopulate.

Briggs noted that the feral cat problem in Mayville has grown tremendously. “It’s a hundred times worse than it was last year. There were four cats in the Tops parking lot last year. This year I got seven in one picture,” she said.

Paula Murdock, also with Little Sanctuary, said this method has been shown to work. She shared that the village of Sherman had a feral cat problem in 2020. “They gave us $900 and helped us do fundraising at local events. We raised $4,000. We fixed 72 cats in 28 days. Sherman doesn’t have a cat problem this year,” she said.

Mayor Ken Shearer asked the representatives with Little Sanctuary to present information in writing to what their plan is and specifically what they’re looking for at the next village board meeting, which is set for Aug. 10.