Midwest Floods Cause Stray Cat Baby Boom

Rescuers work to save stranded animals during the Midwest Floods in this Spring 2008 file photo. Now Iowa Humane Alliance is using a mass spay/neuter program to counteract the stray cat baby boom triggered by the floods. (ZT Pet News File Photo)

Thousands of homes and residential areas were ravished last spring in the Midwest Floods; yet the wake of destruction has created an exploding stray cat population. Now one organization is stepping forward, hoping a mass spay/neuter program will counteract "Midwest Floods cause stray cat baby boom."

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- The heavy flooding that ravished Cedar Rapids, among other Iowa cities, last spring have since receded, leaving destroyed homes and torn lives in their wake.

The city was hit hard by swelling rivers and, on June 12, 2008, suffered the effects of a broken levee. Eight months later, rescue efforts continue to unfold in the region; no one, an animal welfare organization is saying, should get left behind in the mix.

That includes cats -- and not just a few common strays, but thousands of both feral and tame felines that have established their own community in desolate parts of eastern Iowa.

"Cedar Rapids was just devastated from the flooding," said Lynn Zimba, co-founder of the Iowa Humane Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in Coralville, Iowa. "Iowa got hit hard in general."

At this point, Oakville, a city nearly two hours south of Cedar Rapids, "actually has more cats living there now than people," Zimba said of the town which had 439 residents as of the 2000 U.S. census.

In order to benefit animal welfare and public health alike, the Iowa Humane Alliance is now embarking on an ambitious project: to round up all the strays within a 100-mile radius of eastern Iowa and spay/neuter them, potentially calling an end to stray feline overpopulation in the region.

Kicking the Problem to the Curb

The organization presented its formal plan to the city of Cedar Rapids on Tuesday evening, and after gaining informal governmental support, is hoping to launch their project as soon as possible.

Around 50 citizens, as well as several council members, participated in the forum, Blount said.

"They [the city] seemed to appreciate that it was a group of citizens coming forward to propose a solution, rather than just to complain," Blount said.

"We will work with the city to find out when certain areas will be demolished and plan rescues around that. This is what we were hoping for."

The project, which may or may not receive city funding, is an elaborate scheme, which will counter the traditional measures of adoption or euthanasia in lessening the stray population.

"We are trying to be proactive rather than reactive," Zimba said. "This [spaying and neutering] will stop putting all of taxpayer's money into rounding up and killing animals. This plan will spay and neuter the animals, provide them with food, water and shelter, and reduce the public health risk, eventually. With time, these animals will live out their lives."

Iowa's widespread production of grain and corn has always encouraged the steady growth of stray populations, Zimba explains.

"We are the leading corn producer in the nation and there are a lot of grains around," she said. "Where there are rodents, there are cats."

Following last spring's widespread flooding, however, the stray population skyrocketed, given the accessibility of deserted homes and shelter. Domestic cats were also left behind by their owners when they were evacuated from their homes.

The Iowa Humane Alliance doesn't have an exact number of how many stray cats roam the streets -- Zimba approximates, however, that any square mile in Iowa can host around 50 to 100 felines.

"There are hundreds of thousands of animals out there," she said.

The organization's plan is simple: They would catch the animals in live traps, then utilize their connections with local willing veterinarians to fix them all. Previously domesticated cats would try to be paired with their owners.

"We have received a lot of letters and calls from people looking for their cats," said Mary Blount, the organization's program director. "We would then work to match these cats up with their original owners."

Trying to adopt all of the animals out would not likely yield the desired results, Zimba says, noting that there is only "a certain number of people that want pets and are willing to adopt." Placing all of the cats into shelters would boost intake rates, but could overwhelm the facilities, which might then turn to euthanasia as a solution.

"The only way to reduce intake is to reduce the number of animals that are actually being born," Blount said.

If the plan works, the curbed population would stand to benefit the surrounding human community, as well, the Iowa Humane Alliance argues.

"There are people coming from the Health Department who have given us positive reviews," Blount said. "This could lead to a decrease in a risk of rabies, parasites, cat fights, that kind of thing."

Since its inception last year, the Iowa Humane Alliance has raised around $10,000, which has mostly gone toward basic start-up fees.

The organization has also performed routine spay/neuter procedures on around 200 stray cats, but the volume is not significant enough to actually matter, Blount says.

Those procedures have been conducted by a Jenny Doll, DVM, who runs a nonprofit, Witty Kitties, that facilitates rescue and medical services for special needs cats. Doll is able to conduct around 30 to 35 spay/neuter procedures a day, Blount says. Up until a year-and-a-half ago, she did so from her mobile van, which later broke down.

Now, the Humane Alliance also relies on other local veterinarians, but the problem is, as Blount explains, "the procedures can be very expensive."

Just as costly, however, is failing to moderate the shifting tide of the stray community, the organization's leaders say.

Tracking the Ebb and Flow

The Iowa Humane Alliance states that it is imperative to develop the resources to monitor stray communities and track "newcomers" that join the population.

"It's a matter of getting more done. We need a higher volume to see the effects of a population dropping; we would need to get about 70 percent of the cats fixed for this to really happen," Blount said.

"New cats get dropped off and show up, and if you don't follow and continue to spay and neuter, eventually the population rebuilds."

According to Zimba, in the meantime, the organization will continue to focus on accumulating donations from private individuals and other organizations -- this money would ideally go toward an actual facility, where the spay/neuter procedures could be deducted.

Establishing an actual place to call their own is one of the Iowa Humane Alliance's major goals -- but their overarching, simplified mission is to just "stop the killing," Zimba said.

Anywhere between six and eight million stray animals are killed each year, she said, quoting from statistics gathered by the Humane Society of the United States.

The Iowa Humane Alliance's plan might only decrease that number by several hundred thousand, and the project could take years to prove influential and effective. Yet, improvement on any level is a necessary step in curbing the stray overpopulation problem the state faces, the nonprofit's organizers say.

"We want a program that is sustainable, one that will continue to have lasting effects," Blount said. "This could take time, but it would be worth it."

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