news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Missing feral cats at N.C. A&T raised some hackles last week.

Members of the Feral Cat Assistance Program noticed that some of the cats under their care had disappeared. When they learned A&T had hired a pest management company, caregivers feared the worst.

“By the time we found out, a lot of cats were gone,” said Amy Rizzolla, vice president of the Greensboro nonprofit.

But a concerted phone and e-mail campaign that began Monday quickly ended the trapping.

Friends of the group credited A&T officials with taking their concerns seriously and taking action. They were told A&T ended its contract with PMi, the pest management company.

“They were very responsive when it was brought to their attention,” said Lynn Bailie, general sales manager of WCWG-TV on Guilford College Road. A longtime advocate, Bailie said she has cared for feral cat colonies in the past and is helping take care of one near the station.

Mable Scott, a spokeswoman for A&T, said the university is reassessing the situation and exploring how other UNC system schools have dealt with feral cats. Officials were concerned about health issues for students and staff, which prompted the contract with a pest control company, she said.

“This firm ensured us they would take the cats to a shelter and not harm them,” Scott said.

Scott on Saturday singled out the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem as a school A&T officials will talk to because of a capture, neuter and release program it reportedly has.

“We want to do the most humane thing possible,” she said.

Rizzolla doesn’t know how many cats were taken. One caretaker reported her entire colony of four to five cats missing. Another said a couple had not shown up for feedings the past several days, which is unusual.

PMi, based in Greensboro, caught five, said Erin Cochran, assistant to the company’s owner. Three were adopted by employees or friends and two were taken to the Guilford County Animal Shelter, she said.

The company quit trapping after learning that the feral cat program was monitoring the animals, owner Billy Tesh said.

The Feral Cat Assistance Program promotes the “trap-neuter-return” concept. Wild cats are vaccinated, spayed or neutered so they don’t reproduce and are returned to the environment.

Advocates say this method helps manage feral cat populations better than removing the cats, which will just be replaced by others.

Caregivers provide food and water.

Kittens and adults that can be rehabilitated are fostered out pending adoption.

“What they’re doing is commendable,” said Tesh, who also is a member of the Natural Science Center’s board of trustees. “Unfortunately, we just didn’t know about it.”

Before caregivers found out the trapping had ended, they rescued eight kittens abandoned by a student dorm. The mothers could not be found.

Rizzolla spent Thursday afternoon drawing blood from the kittens to test for feline leukemia and vaccinating for distemper.

The cats objected to the thick yellow medicine for deworming, trying to spit it back out. A feisty black kitten moved too much for Rizzolla to draw blood from a vein on her inner thigh.

Afterward, most curled on top of each other in carriers, exhausted by their brief exams.

They’ll go to foster homes, if Rizzolla can find openings, then perhaps get adopted at one of the group’s adoption fairs or from a picture placed on the group’s Web site.

Rizzolla was prepared to fight for the colonies with protests along East Market Street. That won’t be necessary now.

But she hopes the group can create a permanent understanding with A&T — as well as other schools, apartment complexes and other groups with cat colonies — on how to handle feral cats.

“Now the hard work begins,” she said. “I’m sure there are a lot of cats on campus that need to be spayed or neutered.”

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com