News
Project Bay Cat, SF's Humane Solutions!
October 05, 2007, 5:18PM MT
By Denise A LeBeau
Cimeron Morrisey is a one woman dynamo that changed the way feral cats were viewed and treated in San Francisco. She is a finalist in the
Cimeron Morrisey is a one woman dynamo that changed the way feral cats were viewed and treated in San Francisco. She is a finalist in the Animal Planet Cat Hero’s competition, this is her story.
by Denise LeBeau, Best Friends staff
One day while kiteboarding (she’s even progressive when it comes to recreational activities!) in the San Francisco Bay she was struck by the odd scene of the jetties becoming alive with kittens! She had noticed cats on the rocks before, but had assumed they were owned inside/outside cats, that had a preference for an afternoon by the Bay. A quick conversation with her friend, the owner of the San Mateo Animal Hospital, clarified the mystery: they were ferals!
Innocently enough, Cimeron asked why no one was helping them? Should she call and alert the Humane Society? “No!,” said her colleague and friend. “They won’t help them, and if these cats go there, they won’t be coming out,” he explained further.
“It was obvious the cats were breeding out of control. I learned that the only answer was TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release), so I contacted the Humane Society and found out they charged $45 per surgery! As there were over 170 cats, that wasn’t going to work. Then I spoke to my friend from the Animal Hospital and he said he’d do it for free,” Cimeron shares.
“But I didn’t know how to catch them, so with kind guidance from my friend, I chased the cats around the rocks with a pillowcase for two weeks. Exhausted, I went back to the Animal Hospital to explain it wasn’t working! The hysterical laughter from the hospital’s staff let me know quickly that the pillowcase isn’t the preferred method of the “trap” in TNR!”
“Armed with actual cat traps, we were able to get all but four of the cats fixed. And the numbers have gone down 40% due to natural attrition.” This is the humble beginnings of Project Bay Cat!
The program has also been able to attract some of the most dedicated and hardworking volunteers, ever. “That’s the only problem with the Animal Planet’s Cat Hero competition it’s that it doesn’t reflect all the heroes, the volunteers are really the heroes that make this program a success! We have people like Barbara Kohn who volunteers for Project Bay Cat, and then turns around and as a weekend project collects in-kind donations from the surrounding area to drive to the Nye County Cat Rescue in Pahrump, Nevada to help out Best Friends. People like this are invaluable, and deserve their own medal!” (note from author: Cathy Ramsey was also part of the in-kind donation drive, and has been volunteering tirelessly in Pahrump and lending her grooming skills to the animals at the Best Friends Sanctuary, proving that the San Francisco area does have some of the greatest animal lovers in the world!)
It’s been a concerted, continuing effort from the whole community – it’s not just about the cat organizations & cat lovers getting onboard. The Homeless Cat Network gave a presentation to Foster City, and officials got very excited that it would be free to the taxpayers. The Sequoia Audubon Society was concerned for the bird population, and they were assuaged when it was explained that fixed cats will not migrate further than 300 ft from the feeding station. So Project Bay Cat worked with them to determine where feeding stations would be safest for both the birds and the cats!
“The philosophy is simple – keep it positive and focus on success,” says Cimeron when discussing some of the negotiations that could have surely derailed the whole program!
“This is also a people problem, the feral cats of the Bay area were originally cats that people dumped over 15 years ago. We wanted to address this issue to ensure that the population would be decreasing, not increasing due to people’s irresponsibility. So we were thrilled when the City helped us by putting up signs stating that it is illegal to dump, in addition to signs indicating that people shouldn’t feed the cats, plus brochures on the program and TNR!”
The public has also responded in kind, there are many supporters that have been enlightened to the plight of the feral cat and with the tool kit that Cimeron offers through her website, they are able to not only help these cats, but turn on their friends and family to helping the cats in their community too!
Early on though, it was a daunting premise, and Cimeron contacted the Animal Help department of Best Friends. “I was overwhelmed and Animal Help sent out a message to the area, and the amount of moral support I received helped me to keep going! I no longer felt so alone, and it gave me the inspiration I needed to press on!”
“If the public knew there was a problem and knew how to help – they would!,” she relays emphatically. “Many people don’t see the feral cats right in front of their eyes, they don’t know what they’re looking at!”
Cimeron’s going to be helping change all that! First off she’s a professional writer, and a wonderful coup has come her way in the form of doing both feature articles on homeless cats and feral cats for Cat Fancy Magazine plus she’ll also have a regular column in that publication as well!
I asked her if she thought there was any advantage to doing articles for a different audience other than animal welfare enthusiasts and she immediately chimed in, “The advantage is that they are all cat lovers! They care about their own cats and other cats.”
“Homeless cats, feral cats, they’re all cats too!”
How You Can Help
Vote for Cimeron Morrisey for Cat Hero of the Year, click here
For Feral Cat Tool Kits and more info on Project Bay Cat, click here
To learn more about the Homeless Cat Network, click here
Join them on October 13th at the Cool Cats and Cool Jazz Fundraiser! For more info, click here
image of Cimeron Morrisey & friend, courtesy of Cimeron; image of kittens, courtesy of Best Friends Animal Society