TodayCat trapping ends for now
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Nancy Frederick, above left, and Jenise Mattern of PAWS carry a caged cat into the back of SuperPetz along the Carlisle Pike. (Michael Bupp/The Sentinel)
Linda Kelley of Newport prepares to inject a homeless cat.
Over two years, Linda Kelley has become good with a hypodermic "stick" and learned the ins and outs of traps.
The Newport resident has trapped about 125 homeless cats or kittens around her hometown, transported them to a mobile clinic for spaying or neutering, vaccinations and testing for feline AIDS or leukemia, watched their recovery and released most of them back into their territories.
On Friday, she handled the disposable needles quickly and efficiently in the back room at Superpetz store on Carlisle Pike in Hampden Township as part of an assembly line of PAWS volunteers treating 35 cats.
Kelley says she'll continue to wield needles for PAWS, but her trapping days are done for now.
The three cats that she and Newport resident Robert Campbell trapped Thursday mark the end of their two-year trap, neuter and release program.
"I'm going to continue to trap, just on an as-needed basis," Kelley says as she waits for the next sedated cat to arrive from the mobile veterinary van.
Wild cats ‘under control'
But for now, the need is over in Newport.
"I think I've got most of it pretty well under control," Kelley says. "A lot of the cats that are roaming around have been fixed. Right now I have not had any complaints" of stray cats causing problems.
What Kelley does have is adoptable cats. Besides her own seven cats, she has nine adoptables under a year old — some just a few months old — in her home.
PAWS has nearly 600, says President Christine Arnold. Many more cats that are unadoptable have been returned to the areas where they were found. More than 200 cats that lived at Penn National Racetrack have been spayed or neutered.
The nonprofit organization that serves seven counties in south central Pennsylvania will treat homeless cats from anywhere as long as someone provides transportation, Arnold says.
Keystone Mobile Veterinary Services provides surgical procedures, while volunteers give shots, draw blood and monitor recovery from anesthesia.
Goal: ‘Fix' 70 percent
PAWS' goal is to spay or neuter 70 percent of homeless cats, Arnold says.
"At that point, we will see a decrease in the feral cat population," she says. But that amounts to "many, many thousands of cats per year," she says. "We have a lot of work to do."
