What should people be doing about stray and feral cats in Lebanon County?
Unless you're allergic to them, an extremely staunch partisan of dogs, or a mouse, cats garner the love of Lebanon County residents just as they do for people across the globe,  Exceptions exist, though, including one that continues to vex people across the county  feral and stray cats, sometimes grouped together under the term "community cats." The main difference between feral and stray cats, according to Alley Cat Allies, an advocacy group, is their level of socialization to humans. The latter are friendly to people and have generally wandered from homes or have been abandoned. The former have had little contact with people either ever or in recent years and are unlikely to make good pets, although kittens born to feral cats can be adopted into homes and socialized. Stray animals fall under municipal jurisdictions, including townships, boroughs and the City of Lebanon, according to Jo Ellen Litz, Lebanon County commissioner. There has been confusion among some residents as to the steps they should take if they have a problem with cats around their property. New Cleona grooming, spa service is a pet's paradise  More:Surge of strays, not post-pandemic surrenders, leads York SPCA to cut adoption fees in half  More:Petco CEO pushes bringing pandemic pets to work  Contact a shelter  Kristine Glant, who works at the Humane Society of Lebanon County, located in Myerstown, said the shelter is overflowing with requests to take cats. Most of the county's municipalities have confirmed stray holding agreements with the Humane Society, including the City of Lebanon, Annville Township, Jonestown Borough, Cleona Borough and more. A full list can be found on the organization's website. Glant suggests that in the event the Humane Society is overly full, residents with cats can contact shelters in Harrisburg or in Berks or Lancaster counties. "We try to refer them to other local shelters, even if it is half-an-hour away to an hour," Glant said. Some residents also contact York's SPCA to neuter cats. Stray and feral cats are handled differently by many shelters. While stray cats can often be found new homes, this is not often the case with feral cats, which may be euthanized at some shelters. If you can't find a shelter, Glant noted that there are many other alternatives residents of rural Lebanon County are able to use. "If you're in the city, sometimes people reach out to farms in the country so they can have cats for their barns for mousers. Some people who live out in the county as well, they have colonies and they don't mind them....versus the city where you have all these cats running around," she said. Trap-neuter-release  Feral cats have drawn so much ire among some residents that some elected officials have attempted to address the problem directly on social media. Litz recently highlighted the issue in a Facebook post. She showed images of an Alley Cat Allies pamphlet being used by Annville Township explaining the trap-neuter-release approach, alternatively titled trap-neuter-return. Under this method, cats are humanely trapped, brought to a vet, spayed or neutered, eartipped (where part of the ear is removed to signify it can't reproduce), and returned to the wild. This approach has been adopted by a multitude of Lebanon County municipalities, even ones that have laws that ban the feeding of feral cats. Cornwall banned the feeding of feral cats over some outcry by residents in April 2019, but since September of that year has used a trap-neuter-release approach without actually repealing the ordinance. "Since the ordinance went in place, we have not enforced that," said Cody Rhoads, Cornwall borough manager. Instead, when contacted about community cats, which he said were "few and far between," the municipality redirects problems to Cornwall Community Cats, a volunteer-run organization. Jen Wentzel, a volunteer with Cornwall Community Cats, said the trap-neuter-release approach "balances the need to keep that population down so it's not becoming a nuisance and being humane." "Once you start doing it, it can be very successful," she added. According to Sherry Capello, mayor of Lebanon, the city currently partners with the Humane Society to do trap-neuter-release, but the city is looking for another agency as the society is having a challenging time providing the service due to shortages of available vets and the coronavirus. "We will continue to use the Humane Society when they are able to provide this service," she stated. The protocol in Annville has been to not allow feeding unless coupled with a trap-neuter-release approach, according to township administrator Nicholas Yingst. "We actually had this come up as an issue probably about four or five years ago....some of the residents were feeding the cats," said Michael McKenna, borough manager/secretary at Myerstown Borough. As officials considered a feeding ban, they were approached by a group called PAWS. Every time someone reports a cat, Myerstown authorities refer it to PAWS, which uses trap-neuter-release. Since then, "we've seen a pretty big decline in the instances of feral cats," he said, although given that the problem still exists, he acknowledged that "there's no silver bullet." "This is the most humane way to do it, and it is pretty effective," he concluded. "We've noticed a big difference....it's not as urgent of a problem since PAWS started helping out." What to do about kittens  Currently, what the Humane Society calls "kitten season" is in full swing, Glant said. During this period, which she defined as between March and the fall, the Humane Society sees a blizzard of kittens; last year, this amounted to more than 250. This year, animals are coming in even faster. "When people find a stray mother and kitten outside, people want to pick them up away from mom and bring them in, but if we don't have enough people who are trained and willing to take them and bottle-feed them, you're doing more harm to the little ones than [if you make them] a shed, have them grow, and wait till they're old enough to find them a shelter and a home," Glant said. "If they're anything from days to four weeks (old), they're taking away the mother's nutrients." There has been some concern over so-called "pandemic pets"  animals obtained during the coronavirus pandemic purchased for kids, families, or individuals to stave off loneliness  being released into the wild or delivered en masse to shelters. Nationally, the Humane Society has not observed a trend in people surrendering or rehoming pets acquired during the coronavirus pandemic, a finding replicated locally, according to Glant. A downside of the trap-neuter-release framework is that it does nothing in the short-term about existing cats traipsing through people's yards, going through garbage, or otherwise bothering people. Some residents have called for the licensing of cats similar to dogs. The pamphlet posted by Litz suggests residents place a tight lid on their trash can, use car covers, deploy citrus-scented fragrances, and apply cat repellent to address the problems they create. "I think the concerns with feral cats has been an issue and continues to be an issue; especially for neighbors who are experiencing the nuisances sometimes created by feral cats using their yard for a bathroom," Capello wrote in an email. "The [trap-neuter-release] program helps to eventually lessen the number of cats in a colony, but no program/partner removes the cats from the area." At the end of the day, Glant stressed that she hoped residents reacted to cat problems with sympathy. "It's no fault of their own that they're out running around and don't have happy homes," she concluded. Hal Conte is a quality of life and Central Pennsylvania issues reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. You can find him on Twitter at @conte_hal.