Animal House
In this column from our archives , Ellen Liberman explores the state ’ s fractured animal welfare system .
On Thanksgiving weekend , Gil Fletcher and Martine Ireland lay a fancy feast for the neighborhood strays . The cottage on East Providence ’ s Grosvenor Avenue stands at the nexus of the owner ’ s kind heart and an adjacent school where cat owners often shed themselves of that title . Margaret Tainish and her daughter , Elena , try their best to feed the abandoned animals haunting their back stoop . Other neighbors provide shelter in their garages .
But left to their own devices , cats multiply like cats . The state hosts an estimated 75,000 free-roaming felines capable of producing up to 200,000 kittens annually . Their fecundity is almost matched by the rigors of life in the wild ; the mortality rate is high . Half of a litter dies in eight weeks , and 75 percent of the remainder do not survive six months .
Nonetheless , without human intervention , feral cat colonies will sustain themselves and grow . Snapping open cloths and spooning food into dishes , Fletcher and Ireland bait rectangular traps , as the
GETTY IMAGES / MEAGHAN SUSI . regulars muster in the shrubbery . A smoky gray male stalks the yard , attracted to the food but suspicious of the ambience .
Fletcher and Ireland repair to a nearby Dunkin ’ Donuts to wait . The duo are volunteers with PawsWatch , an animal welfare organization dedicated to reducing the feral cat population . Founded in 1997 , PawsWatch traps , neuters and vaccinates the adults before returning them to their colonies where they are fed and monitored . By 2014 , PawsWatch had provided veterinary care to 20,000 cats .
These numbers do not comfort Fletcher . PawsWatch , like many of the animal welfare organizations in the state , is pulling its oars against the river of unwanted dogs and cats . PawsWatch cannot dent the feral cat population without partnerships with municipalities and other groups . Nursing his coffee , Fletcher bemoans the fractionalized world of animal rescue .
“ I ’ ve been on this soapbox for years ,” he says . “ Rhode Island has an amazing richness of animal welfare resources . The problem is ,
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