Stray, feral, and outdoor cats are abundant across the Shenandoah Valley, with colonies bearing litters of kittens year-round. Through spay and neuter programs, fostering, and adoption, shelters and volunteers are trying to stem the feline tide. Listeners should be advised this story mentions some graphic veterinary problems. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The Kisers' historic family farm sits along a busy country road outside of Mount Jackson. A friendly gray tabby cat named Junebug greets me at the door.
[Junebug meows]
ANNALISE KISER: Good job. So that's June. [Junebug meows directly into the microphone]
Annalise Kiser lives here with her mom, Cindy, a herd of rare-breed horses, a flock of chickens, one dog, and 13 cats. Some of those showed up here – others, at their old home near Verona. Annalise found Junebug when she was working for the Census Bureau in 2019.
ANNALISE KISER: And so I drove into a pretty isolated barn that I presume was abandoned, and a cat started chasing my car! And when I stopped the car, she jumped up in front of it and started screaming on the hood. … I got out and I picked her up and she started purring.
We sit down to talk near the wood stove, surrounded by curled-up cats – Rosebud, Wobble, Jane, Prim, Sanderson. Over the years, they've taken in even more that they were able to rehome.
RANDI HAGI: So you said these 13 were the ones that you couldn't get rid of –
ANNALISE KISER: We've been trying.
CINDY KISER: I have not been trying! [laughs]
ANNALISE KISER: I've been trying.
One of their neighbors has a colony of outdoor cats on their property. They've all been fixed, now, but the Kisers said kittens still appear occasionally.
ANNALISE KISER: It used to be, instead of dumping cats, they would drown kittens, you know?
CINDY KISER: That's what my grandmother would do. And that's awful, too!
ANNALISE KISER: That's awful, but it is also like – now we can spay and neuter! [cat meows] … When the alternative is these colonies, I see why they didn't want this to be their farm.
Cats freely breeding and roaming also has an impact on our local wildlife.
DR. KARRA PIERCE: We see … wild animals that have been caught by cats almost every single day, coming into our hospital.
Dr. Karra Pierce is the director of veterinary services at The Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro.
PIERCE: Their survival chances are pretty low, generally, due to the injuries that these cats can cause to them. It's especially prevalent in the spring and summer when the wild animals are having their babies, so there are young squirrels, young opossum, young mice, lots of young songbirds. … We also see reptiles, as well.
In Melissa Miller's house outside Maurertown, foster cats watch the wildlife through the windows of a large sunroom.
[cat purrs]
MELISSA MILLER: The long-term residents, obviously, usually have health issues or they're older. This one here is Gracie.
Miller is the president of the Humane Society of Shenandoah County, a volunteer network of foster homes. Many of their adoptable cats find homes through the Aristocat Cafe in downtown Harrisonburg. They also have programs to help people spay and neuter their pets, and spay and neuter feral and "community" cats that live outdoors. That's often referred to as trap-neuter-return, or TNR.
In one room, kittens hop in my lap and up on my shoulder.
[tiny mews]
MILLER: We received a call … from a lady who had a lot of cats and a lot of kittens and she needed help. When we got out there, initially we took in 13 older kittens and two very small kittens that were sick. … They had a total of five adults there, there was only one male and four females. [chuckles] When I took some back after they'd been spayed or neutered, these kittens were actually falling out of the carport rafters.
The "teen" room is full of cats trapped from outdoor colonies. Some are friendly, and some Miller hopes can still be socialized. Their health problems are a prime example of how the welfare of colony cats can suffer.
MILLER: He had such a high infestation of worms his rectum was literally sticking out. So he had to get surgery. … She has some scarring on her eyes from her upper respiratory. … We had to have one of his eyes removed. … They came from a colony in Fort Valley. He had, probably, well over 50 cats.
They fix an average of 1,000 cats a year – but they keep coming in. Miller, who also co-leads the Virginia Federation of Humane Societies, said it's like this all over the state.
MILLER: They breed so fast. [dog barks] And I don't think that people realize that they can get pregnant so early. They can get pregnant when they're nursing.
The Rockingham-Harrisonburg SPCA also has a Community Cat Program, which provides vouchers to county residents so they can get their outdoor cats fixed, vaccinated, and microchipped at Anicira Veterinary Center.
HUCK NAWAZ: Historically, we had such a large amount of cats and kittens coming into our care here as a municipal shelter that we wanted to address the upstream causes.
Executive Director Huck Nawaz said when they launched the program, the shelter was taking in more than 2,000 cats every year. Since then, they've spayed and neutered an average of 1,500 cats a year through this program – and it is making a difference.
NAWAZ: It's been impactful. We've taken in almost 500 less felines that we used to, in 2022. … But if they're going to be out there, I think there's an obligation for all of us to make an effort to reduce the suffering of animals, also by reducing the number of animals, cats, that are running loose.
From November 10-15, the RHSPCA will be giving away outdoor cat supplies, including shelters and food, from 10 to 2 p.m. each day.
[cat meows]
And remember – animal shelters and humane societies are always in need of donations, fosters, and volunteers.
