Bucks County Officials, Volunteers Team Up To Tackle Growing Cat Problem In Core Creek Park
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- In a week or two, volunteers and Bucks County Parks and Rec officials will be setting out humane traps to round up hundreds of cats believed to be prowling the woods of Core Creek Park.
The sylvan scenery of the park is suddenly broken by a 100 yard stretch of ugly makeshift shelters and loads of cats popping in and out of the brush.
The cats and visitors who love them have created quite the eyesore for regulars like Diane Izzy.
"Every time that my son and I walk through here there is tons of cats," she says. "Sometimes we've even seen maybe about 20 and we've seen people bring food to them. We've seen little shelters being brought to them."
County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia says well-meaning visitors have turned portions of the park into feline shantytowns.
"Rubbermaid containers, wooden boxes, all kinds of different ways," she says, "but not attractive."
Along with heaping bowls of dry food.
"They're overfed so that there's too much cat food there, which is encouraging wild animals including coyotes to come," Ellis-Marseglia says. "And then they don't just eat the cat food, they attack the cats."
Ellis-Marseglia is spearheading a collective effort to thin the population by trapping and neutering the animals, then returning the ferals to the wild and finding homes for the friendlies.
She says the goal is to find homes for most of the cats and take action against those who abandon their pets.
"We're going to install cameras," Ellis-Marseglia says, "and we're going start prosecuting anybody we see who drops off a cat."
Organizers expected to start the program in a week or two.
