Humane Society seeing record-breaking year for outdoor cat colonies in Okanagan, Kamloops

There has been a huge spike in requests to deal with outdoor feral cat colonies in the Okanagan and Kamloops this year and some have up to 60 cats living outdoors.

Romany Runnalls, the executive director of the Okanagan Humane Society, told iNFOnew.ca they’ve been out to two different colonies in the past two weeks alone, one in Vernon and one north of Kamloops.

“That’s 40 cats in two weeks we’ve taken on,” she said. “It just keeps on going. It’s a problem. People are looking for solutions and they’re looking for humane, no kill solutions. So some organizations will offer to euthanize these animals. That’s not what we do.”

The humane society spays and neuters cats and then finds them a home, whether it’s a well socialized cat to a family home or a poorly socialized cat to a farm or barn.

“We find a solution for every single one of them without euthanasia coming into the question,” she said.

Runnalls said they get calls about individual strays every day, and typically they deal with a larger colony every month, but this year they are getting more and more calls and requests to help big groups of stray cats.

“We are having a year that I would say is record breaking but not in a good way. Record breaking in terms of there’s so many animals that need help and we’ve not seen these kinds of numbers in a long time,” she said.

She said the society was recently told about a cat colony in Merritt that had 60 cats, but the problem of large groups is all over the region.

“We also hear the same thing from Vernon, Lumby, Cherryville, Penticton, Osoyoos, Kelowna, West Kelowna. I mean, these colonies are everywhere,” she said.

It costs the humane society around $300 to care for each animal and those costs quickly add up when taking on dozens of cats.

Runnalls said the issue is that spay and neuter operations are expensive and the rising cost of living makes it hard for cat owners to get their pets sterilized.

Cats aren’t meant to live on their own outside in a Canadian climate since stray cats often live off small prey like mice and birds which are harder to come by in the cold and snow.

“There are people that don’t appreciate that cats are taking down birds and other wildlife. So, keeping them safe inside is a really nice option to keep your animals safe inside, but also to keep the other animals outside safe,” she said.

The humane society helps low-income people spay and neuter their pets by covering part of the cost and connecting people with local veterinarians.

“We really need to raise some funds so that we can just keep the population in check and get these animals vaccinated, dewormed, spayed or neutered to stop the breeding and then up to their new homes,” she said.

To learn more about the Okanagan Humane Society or give them a donation, go here.