To the Editor:
The barn door is closing on Cattrap. We have trapped and neutered 6,500 cats on Martha’s Vineyard and on Cape Cod. We have provided spay/neuter services and veterinary help for the cats of hundreds of people on the Island. Some of you reading this are sharing your home and life with a Cattrap cat.
We have tried to facilitate and encourage people to spay or neuter their animals. Sometimes that has fallen on deaf ears. That is why there were an estimated 10,000-plus feral or homeless cats on the Island in 1994. After getting the number of feral and homeless cats down to nearly zero, the numbers are accelerating again, because Cattrap does not have the woman power or funds to be trapping 24/7, and that is what it takes. It also takes low or no cost spay/neuter, and that has not been readily available on Martha’s Vineyard.
I and husband Dixon Rogers have used much of our own personal funds to keep Cattrap going. We have tried to continue to help cats and people on the Island even after we moved to California in 2004. Lee Dubin has been the central on-Island figure with Cattrap since then. Only through Lee have we been able to keep the Cattrap barn shelter functioning, to take care of the many rescued cats.
Now Cattrap has lost the lease on the barn shelter property. No cats will be able to live out their lives there. We are looking for a few people who would be willing to house and feed some of these cats. Most are semi-feral. They are not looking for human attention, but for a warm place to sleep and good food. They would be fine in a barn or outbuilding. They are not cats that would be happy confined in a house. They are all good mousers. If there are people on the Island who can offer this kind of home to a cat or two, please call Lee Dubin at cell 774-994-7280 or home at 508-696-3869.
Although Cattrap will no longer have a shelter, Lee will provide advice and equipment for trapping. She will help in an advisory capacity. Cattrap will do whatever it can to continue to address the issue of the overpopulation of domestic animals.
Please spay or neuter. If the people on Martha’s Vineyard do not prevent the problem, the population of unwanted and often suffering animals will balloon very quickly.
Cattrap is now in its 20th year of service. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to Cattrap, the funds will promote the continued spay and neuter of Island cats. Checks should be made payable to Cattrap Inc. and sent to Lee Dubin at P.O. Box 1273, West Tisbury, MA 02575.
Laurie Huff
Sonoma, California
