As many as 22 feral cats

exterminated from downtown

Ryan Long

At least 18 feral cats, many of which were fixed through the efforts of Wrangellites over the summer, were caught in foot traps on Jitterbug’s Coffee property the week of October 26 and reportedly stomped to death. The act was repeated on November 2.

Officers from the Wrangell Police Department responded to both incidents but indicated that Leann Rinehart, owner of Jitterbugs Espresso To Go, was within her rights to exterminate feral cats on her property in a humane fashion.

Since the initial two instances, Rinehart has agreed to use live traps that allow for a humane extermination or relocation of the feral cats.

Katherine George-Byrd, co-owner of Zak’s Café, had been working over the summer to implement a program in Wrangell that would use community-raised funds to trap and neuter feral cats. The neutering and release of feral cats has been shown as one of the most effective means of controlling feral cat problems in both rural and urban communities. George-Byrd indicated that the act on the part of Rinehart and the student she hired to dispatch the cats were neither rightful nor humane. “I noticed that a few of the cats that had been feeding had disappeared. We had a TNR program going on, a Trap, Neuter and Release program, and we had caught 20 or so of them. I started asking for them and a kid told me that one of their classmates had been hired to catch cats at Jitterbug’s and stomp on them until they were dead,” said George-Byrd. “They were hired to kill the cats. I’ve already written a letter to the Humane Society, which explains everything I know about the situation,” continued George-Byrd.

According to Rinehart, the feral cats have been a problem for many years and it was about time someone did something about them. “The thing is that they’re a nuisance, they’re disease ridden, they cause problems and there’s no reason that they should be downtown. They endanger the public health and I’m getting rid of them. The do-gooders decided that they want to save the cats, so now we’ve got live traps in there and they’re going to take them away, but that’s not going to work. It’s not a reality. Once wild animals are here they’re going to come back. All of my neighbors can’t stand them and I’m finally doing something about it. I would love it if you could reform them, but you can’t, they’re wild cats. The humane society won’t accept them, they put their wild cats down because they’re a public nuisance,” said Rinehart.

Rinehart indicated that she is willing to explore alternate solutions but that something needed to be done one way or the other. “I’m stuck looking like the bad guy killing these cats. Everyone is saying that it’s inhumane but no one was doing anything to help. Now we have some live traps and we’re getting rid of them. That started yesterday. I’m all for the humane way. I have 24 cats here and they’re mangy and disease ridden. It’s bad for business and it’s bad for the downtown area and no one was there to help me get rid of them,” said Rinehart.