Army of volunteers take care of feral cats on Long Island

‘My parents put up with a lot,” said Stephanie Notarnicola. “I kept bringing in these old, decrepit cats. Foster cages covered almost every surface of my bedroom.”

Notarnicola, now 30, said she was 8 years old when she started caring for a colony of feral cats behind her parents’ ice cream shop in Shirley. For years, she dedicated her life to the roaming cats roaming near restaurant dumpsters and other area areas — compromising her personal life while doing so.

“I had been up early for vet appointments and late trapping cats for neutering. I didn’t really have a social life,” said Notarnicola.

Notarnicola has actually considering that vacated her family’s Massapequa home and resides in Central Islip. But as the director of Community Cats of Long Island, a not-for-profit she developed in 2021, Notarnicola stays dedicated to her feline buddies — a lot so that she has actually changed the one-acre woody lot where she and her partner live into a sanctuary for special-needs cats, total with heated structures and an outside enclosure.

Notarnicola is among an almost unnoticeable army of individuals — consisting of trappers, vets, transporters, nest caretakers, fosters, rehabilitators and teachers — who work relentlessly to take care of “community” cats, or strays, on Long Island.

Numbers have actually grown

The precise variety of roaming cats on the Island is not understood. But the Town of Hempstead approximates its neighborhood cat population at 30,000 to 50,000. Nationally, the not-for-profit animal rights organization PETA approximates there are 60 million to 100 million homeless felines in the United States — a number measuring up to, if not going beyond, that of owned cats throughout America and one that has actually climbed up with the recent desertion of family pet cats after an adoption boom throughout the pandemic.

For some, the expansion of cats wandering the outdoors can be viewed as an annoyance or a hazard to area wildlife. But even for those who discover them to be charming, the objective — according to supporters — is to diminish their numbers.

“Living outdoors is not their choice, it is their predicament. They endure profound suffering with starvation, illness and injury,” said Dr. Gay Senk, the starting vet of Farmingdale Dog & Cat Clinic. “Cats are domestic animals and not meant to be fending for themselves.”

While eliminating roaming cats might minimize their population in a provided location momentarily, professionals said it is eventually disadvantageous, as other cats will just adopt the uninhabited area, a phenomenon called “the vacuum effect.”

TNR: Trap, neuter, return

Instead, promotes require trapping, neutering and returning the cats to their environment — a procedure typically described as TNR — which they state has a huge effect in reducing the size and variety of cat nests, as feral women can have up to 3 litters a year.

“If you feed them, you must spay and neuter, vaccinate for rabies and ear-tip them,” said Senk, describing the practice of notching a cat’s left ear at a 45-degree angle to suggest they have actually been repaired. “They must be returned to a managed colony, where caregivers provide food, water, shelter and monitor for newcomers. Over time, attrition reduces their numbers.”

Bellmore citizen John Debacker started his profession trapping cats 12 years earlier as a Seaford high school trainee, when he rescued 4 roaming kittens near his home. Today, it’s his full-time job. He is gotten in touch with frequently by regional town shelters, in addition to rescue companies and the authorities, for both regular and emergency situation circumstances.

“I’ve gotten called to remove a cat from the center median on the Southern State Parkway and have had the MTA turn off its power to remove a stray from the tracks,” he said.

And he said he can’t stay up to date with the need: “I barely have time for all the calls. It’s out of control,” he said.

He is assisted by individuals like Joanne Monez, director and creator of the not-for-profit All About Spay Neuter Inc., who says the organization has actually carried out TNR on 600 to 1,000 feral cats yearly for the previous twenty years.

Monez, a long-lasting animal fan, ended up being active in the TNR world after she relocated to Massapequa in 1991.

“There were a lot of cats in the area,” she said. “I saw a neighbor living across the canal behind me feeding them. She was the one who introduced me to trapping.”

Monez, who worked as a training director for an electrical apprenticeship program prior to retiring, caught her very first litter of kittens at Jones Beach State Park.

“Before they were all adopted, I kept them in my bathtub because I wasn’t yet set up with cages,” she remembered. “More and more, people began calling me for help.”

Clinic on wheels

Ten years earlier, Monez opened a shop adoption center on Merrick Road in Massapequa. Then in 2017, she found an online listing for a 40-foot bus equipped for spaying and neutering and chose to buy it sight hidden from its owner in Florida.

She now runs an appointment-only center 2 to 3 times a month in the reconditioned vehicle, which she camps outside a gasoline station in Bellmore.

“It is all volunteers working on the bus — vets, vet students and techs — and I do most of the trapping,” said Monez, who spends for the parking area with funds her organization gets as contracted trappers for the Town of North Hempstead and Village of East Hills TNR programs.

Among her volunteers is Senk, who is thought about a leader in Long Island’s efforts to manage its roaming cat population.

Senk’s commitment to roaming felines followed a 14-year profession as an equine vet, particularly as a recreation professional for the racehorse market.

“I felt a deep sense of humanity, a desire to fulfill a need,” explained the two-year member of the U.S. Equestrian Team of her redirection, contrasting the elite thoroughbreds she treated with ownerless cats living out a reduced, hard-knocks presence on the streets.

More than thirty years later on, Senk’s empathy hasn’t subsided. Along with the care she continues to supply, she is concentrated on handing down what she has actually discovered to the next generation of vets, consisting of trainees in Long Island University’s nascent veterinary program, by connecting to supply them with hands-on experience in the field.

“You see more pathology working on feral cats than you’ll ever see in private practice,” she said.

M*A*S*H for cats

Another group of volunteers collects month-to-month at a Huntington veterinary medical facility to make sterile and sterilize roaming cats.

Joanne Anderson, a retired instructor who volunteers as the outreach organizer for Last Hope Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation, compared the organization’s month-to-month TNR center to a scene from the old tv program M*A*S*H, which last aired frequently in 1983.

“It’s like an incredible assembly line,” she said. “There is the prep area, waiting room, sedation station, spaces where the surgery is done and recovery rooms. It takes 20 volunteers, from the vets to the people who help apply heating pads and blankets after the operations, and that does not include the trappers.” (Anderson said the veterinary workplace asked to stay confidential.)

Each month, she approximates her group organizes to make sterile or sterilize in between 30 and 50 cats.

“For many, it’s the only time they see a vet,” Anderson kept in mind. “We can also give them painkillers and ear-mite medication. While they are under, it’s a golden opportunity to pull a bad tooth or fix a hernia.”

The animal rescue, which is based in Wantagh, likewise provides coupons through its Fix-A-Feral program, which assists settle the cost of TNR for feral cats. For $15, individuals can bring cats to a half-dozen places throughout Long Island, consisting of Helping PAW in East Meadow and Island Rescue in Bay Shore. So far this year, Anderson said, Last Hope, which is moneyed through grants, contributions, fundraising occasions and a thrift shop, has actually provided about 600 coupons.

Participants are advised to trap every cat in the nest, return the repaired felines to their initial area and to continue to feed them. “It is not a good-riddance program. It is part of the deal that you are going to take care of them,” said Anderson. (For more details, check out the animal rescue’s website at lasthopeanimalrescue.org.)

2,000 queries a year

“We have to think of feral cats as part of the ecosystem,” said Elyise Hallenbeck, director of neighborhood efforts for Bideawee, which serves New York City and Long Island. With a group of just 5 — 3 workers and 2 volunteers — for such a big area, Hallenbeck said she feels the not-for-profit’s feral cat program can make the most significant effect by offering details and resources.

Bideawee’s Feral Cat Initiative Help Desk fields 1,500 to 2,000 queries every year, with over 9,000 nests signed up. The organization likewise provides webinars dealing with topics varying from how to bottle-feed kittens to TNR.

Bideawee likewise supports TNR groups and people. “They are the boots on the ground,” said Hallenbeck. “We make sure they have everything they need to be successful, like providing low-cost and free spay and neuter appointments, loaning and delivering traps, and offering free transport. There are a lot of puzzle pieces to performing TNR. We hold their hand to make it manageable and accessible.”

Hallenbeck and other supporters who take care of Long Island’s feral cats state that more help is constantly required. Caring volunteers remain in high need throughout the population-control procedure, from feeding to repairing to cultivating.

“This isn’t your neighbor Jim’s backyard problem — it’s a far-reaching problem,” said Hallenbeck. And, she kept in mind, “It’s easier than you think to be part of the solution.”