There’s a population of feral cats in one of the teaching buildings apparently centred in one corner of floor 6, though they probably range more widely. I’ve been aware of them for perhaps a year or so, but have only seen 2 adult individuals on a few occaisions. Over the winter vacation, there were indications, from the level of movement noise, that there were kittens, so the term “population”, or at least “family” becomes appropriate.
It’s possible of course that this was already well known, but since many/most Taiwanese wouldn’t notice an African Elephant, or care if they did, unless it obstructed their route to the night market, I thought I’d better report it.
They live in the space between the ceiling and the ceiling tiles, coming out to forage at night. They are presumably defecating up there. Cat shit, especially feral cat shit, is a potential source of toxoplasmosis and not something you want drying in quantity overhead, plus at least one of their access routes runs over the top of a drinking water dispenser.
I’d accordingly (and reluctantly) suggested this population was a potential health hazard and should be eliminated.
One more time:
Rats are the source of toxoplasmosis. It is a foodborne illness, which means it is transmitted by mishandled food and then such food not cooked well. The parasite has a short life and unless the cat are recently a very fresh rat, well, hard for it to be in the poop. However, the stench and other bacteria and stuff do make that a problem.
The feral colony is fed by humans and I do not mean little kind ladies. Somewhere in the building there is an open buffet, in the form of a garbage dump, which is actually more of a health hazard. It is way easier to first get rid of that than to try the usual method of traps -illegal BTW- or rounding and relocating cats before eliminating the food source first.
Nearby animal asociations can help you TNR. That will keep the colony at a reasonable size.
According to Wickipedia, the food-bourne route is a not-only-but-also " Ingestion of cat feces containing oocysts: This can occur through hand-to-mouth contact following gardening, cleaning a cat’s litter box, or contact with children’s sandpits; the parasite can survive in the environment for months
Ingestion of untreated, unfiltered water through direct consumption or utilization of water for food preparation. (as I said, they run over a water dispenser to reach the ceiling space)
Cats excrete the pathogen in their feces for a number of weeks after contracting the disease, generally by eating an infected intermediate host that could include mammals (like rodents) or birds. "
I’ve since noticed a catfood tin under a missing ceiling tile on the 5th floor, so little kind ladies may be a factor, unless this was poison bait, which I’d think unlikely. They do certainly raid rubbish bins (one of the two places I’ve seen them). The other was near a spotlight on an open flat roof section, suggesting they are partly insectivorous. I dont know if they take rats,(which are certainly present) but the two adults I’ve seen looked rather small to tackle an adult rat. Feral pigeons are present and probably another health hazard, which to be fair is now finally being partly addressed with netting.
So, is there cooking going on? Eating? Are inmunosuppressed people in the vicinity?
One tin for a colony? Again, stray animals are a human problem, but as much as kind old ladies would like it, a colony needs a large supply of food.
Rats here are way too big and fierce for cats, they feed on babies, which are seasonal. Pigeons are not so dumb to make a steady meal. Garbage. Look for open garbage pits.
Hope it is not poison. Aside from illegal, it would be useless. Ask anyone, especially farmers, with a rat infestation.
Address the problem in stages. Remove food source - the open garbage buffet. Next, do TNR. Cats take care of a established territory per cat. Anything above that generates conflicts and fosters disease. So the advantage of TNR is that it discourages more cats entering the colony… And no more are created.
What Icon said. The cats are there because it’s an ideal habitat for cats. If (for the sake of argument) the administrators wiped them out, all that would happen is that another lot would move in. Or possibly a bunch of other animals.
As Icon said, if eliminating the food source isn’t possible, then the TNR option is not just the humane option but the logical one, because if that ecological niche is occupied by a bunch of spayed cats, they’ll keep others out.
I do understand feral cats can be a pain in large numbers - especially when they keep producing more cats - but if you have a pest infestation of any sort, you need to find out what caused it in the first place.
Tnr is the ideal. Teapping via cage and relocation a second option. But really cats are bad to have loose so ideally fix them then release them.
One note i learned volunteering with a vet group doing surgeries for tnr is that there is great jealousy amongst vets and they lobby the gov to ban it. The legal isaue the R. Releasing is illegal. My experiemce with this is Kaohsiung city so not sure about elsewhere (we had to do it in Pingtung, where laws never apply haha) but it seems logical enough not to advertise what youre doing if you do it. Or if someone helps you.
No thats the thing in kaohsiung they said its illegal to release. The vets pay out of poclet and by donation for this particular group. So ya…just dumb.
This is a good point, but the tolerated-residents-tactic means you have to tolerate the associated health hazard (however exaggerated) too.
Seems to me the optimal solution might be to remove the tiles (which seem to have no practical function), perhaps replacing them with netting to avoid creating pigeon roosts.
I’ll suggest it, but “appearance is all” hereabouts so it’ll likely not fly.
