Counting and Controlling Campus Cats

Operation Catnip limits cat numbers the humane way

Friday, December 8, 2000

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You're on the Duke University campus trying to trap a feral cat for Operation Catnip the next morning, it's 10 p.m. and the cat is not going into the trap for anything. What do you do?

Helen Cook, a critical care nurse at Duke, had a novel approach. She got a fishing net and caught the cat, but the cat began to break out and became hopelessly entangled in the net. Who might help? Cook recalled a visiting Episcopalian minister who had stopped to chat with her as she was setting out traps earlier that night. After locating the building where the minister was attending a meeting, she tapped on the window to get his attention. The minister came to the rescue, helped to free the cat from the net with a pair of scissors and transferred it to an awaiting trap. He named the cat "Rebecca" and after going through Operation Catnip, she was returned to join her sisters: Ruth, Naomi, Deborah and Rachel and the other Duke Chapel cats.

"I just stumbled into this," says Cook, a regular Operation Catnip volunteer. The program is a volunteer effort to promote non-lethal, humane control of feral cat population through trapping of cats, neutering them then returning them to their environment.

"Around five years ago I was at the credit union and saw a little kitten on the lawn in the sun," she said. After following the kitten into nearby woods, Cook discovered a mother cat and three more kittens. Cook called a friend, Beth Bonner, for help.

After catching the kitten, Cook and Bonner realized that he was very sick and rushed him to a local veterinarian. "The vet diagnosed severe flea bite anemia -- that's why the kitten was weak enough to be caught," said Cook.

The kitten was named "Wheatie" and Bonner subsequently adopted him. After that, Cook purchased a trap from the local Barn Feed & Supply and the two began trapping and taming feral kittens -- finding homes for as many of them as possible.

"We were overwhelmed," Cook said. "Nobody seemed to know what to do with feral cats. We had a MASH unit (a field-based hospital) at home for the kittens, but what about the adults?"

Call it serendipity or fate, in late June 1995, Cook saw an issue of Animality, a Carolinas newspaper catering to animal lovers, that contained an article on feral cats, Alley Cat Allies and the trap-neuter-return method. (This publication, under different ownership, is now Zoophile News Network.) Included in the article was the phone number of a local veterinarian, Dr. Julie Levy. Cook called Levy who agreed to help if Cook brought the cats to her.

So Cook began the task of trapping and transporting adult ferals from Duke to Garner for surgery and vaccinations. With only one trap to work with, and room in her Jeep for only two large cat carriers, Cook was only able to process two cats at a time. The cats would stay with Levy in larger carriers with food and litter for several days' recovery and would then make the trip back to the Duke campus where they were reunited with their colonies.

In July 1997, Cook wrote to Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane requesting permission to trap ferals and set up feeding stations for the colonies on campus. Cook and former president of Operation Catnip, Lisa Kaplan, later met with facilities management representative Jack Burgess.

Cook recalls the surprising outcome of the meeting. "We came out of the meeting stunned. All we wanted was for them to say it was OK."

But Duke wanted to do more than just give permission, offering to purchase traps and loan out staff to help with trapping. Furthermore, Duke agreed to make a donation to Operation Catnip for each cat processed in its clinics, purchased 10 traps for Cook to use and added "helping to trap feral cats" to the facilities management supervisor's job description.

Currently, there are several feeding stations at Duke, including the Quad area, the credit union, Searle Center and Wallace Wade Stadium. Many of the credit union cats, such as Buster, Gray, Sadie, Credit and Debit, hold a special place in the hearts of their caretakers as they were the first.

Over the past five years, 95 cats have been processed and 44 kittens have been socialized and adopted into new homes. In fact, there are currently three kittens "on show" at a local veterinary hospital in Durham. Cook commends all the other people in the rescue community for their many efforts in helping the Duke ferals.

This article previously ran in Operation Catnip News. For more information about the organization, call (919) 779-7247.

Written by Neil Kreisberg.