Cat lovers are breathing a sigh of relief after San Benito High
School’s administrators have agreed staff can continue feeding the
feral felines who call the campus home.
Hollister – Cat lovers are breathing a sigh of relief after San Benito High School’s administrators have agreed staff can continue feeding the feral felines who call the campus home.
Earlier this week, a school administrator sent an e-mail informing the staff they could no longer feed the colony of feral cats that lives at the high school. But after meeting with Becky Iddings, a para-educator at the high school who feeds the cats, Superintendent Stan Rose said they agreed the cats could still be fed – just not near the classrooms.
“They’ve initiated a program moving the feeding further away from the classrooms,” said Jim Koenig, director of finance and operations. “We’re in favor of that because it moves them further away and removes the cat waste.”
All Creatures Great and Small, a local animal rescue agency, has maintained the high school’s feral cat population through a catch, neuter, release program for more than a year now. Several people from the group also feed the cats.
The group’s president, Vivian Kennedy, said she was pleased with the school’s decision and willingness to listen to Iddings.
Kennedy estimated there were “at most” 30 cats in the colony.
“I can’t thank them enough for their understanding of the facts and correcting what could have been a gross miscalculation on their part,” Kennedy said.
Iddings also said she was glad with what she called a “very positive meeting” with the superintendent.
“We’re going to be setting up feeding areas on the perimeters of the high school,” Iddings said.
She added that her taking care of the cats is independent of her teaching responsibilities.
“What I do about the cats is on my own time,” she said.
Kennedy said her organization had put “thousands” of dollars into the feral cats. The group catches the cats, gives them shots, neuters them and marks them before releasing them back into the wild. The younger, tamer cats are given away, she said.
She said there were still more cats that need to be caught – primarily kittens born earlier this year – and she plans to start trying to snag these felines as early as this weekend.
All Creatures Great and Small members will continue to monitor the population, Kennedy said. The group’s volunteers will make sure they’re fed and their populations are maintained.
One of the reasons the presence of felines had again become an issue, Rose said, is that the cat population appears to have grown. Still, Rose said the idea was not to remove the cats altogether – perhaps an impossible task – just to ensure that the population is controlled.
“I believe we are always going to have cats in the area. We’re also always going to have rodents here,” Rose said. “The best approach is one that tries to get a balance between the two and also tries to protect the buildings here so we don’t have animals forming homes under the buildings and affecting student learning.”
One of the primary concerns with feeding cats is whether the food will attract other critters, district officials said.
Koenig said there was a general feeling that taking care of the feral cats could attract skunks – a larger problem the high school faces. The fear is that the cat food attracts a skunk population, Koenig said.
“It’s a moderate to severe problem in some of the classrooms,” Koenig said of the skunks. “You get a skunk under one of these old portable classrooms, it can take a month to get rid of the smell.”
Kennedy said she believes the skunk problem is a separate issue and they would be attracted to the high school with or without the cat food.
Although the cats are wild, it is important they are fed so they can maintain a healthy diet, Kennedy said.
“I know a lot of people think that feral cats don’t deserve a chance at life, but I’m sorry, they do,” Kennedy said. “Feral cats are a result of human lack of care. It’s our fault they’re out there, and they deserve a chance at life just like any other animal.”
