WILD CAT COLONY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29336, 15 October 1960, Page 4

WILD CAT COLONY

Hamilton Problem

“The Press” Special Service HAMILTON, October 14.

A complaint about a colony of wild cats living on the river bank in Hamilton East was made in a letter from a woman resident received by the Hamilton City Council.

She camplained that she had sought help against the cats in vain from the Health Department, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and a department of the council

The department “had blandly promised to call and collect the cats If the residents would catch them." The woman asked: “HoW does one catch wild cats’” She added that the cats dug holes in the garden at night. Having observed that seven of them were expecting kittens, she feared an alarming increase in the colony. The Mayor, Dr. D. Rogers, said the letter had been discussed at length and referred to the city solicitor. It was his opinion that the council was not responsible for removing the cats. It was not easy to find out just who was

responsible for cats that had become a pest. Dr. Rogers said he had a cat problem at his own home, which was near a warehouse.

He had tried offering his three children a bonus for captured cats —los for a captured tomcat and 5s for a female cat.

“My children are just as keen to get those shillings as anyone else," Dr. Rogers said, “but in three months they have not caught one cat. See how difficult it is?”

Miss D. E. Menzies said that when she was matron-in-chief of Waikato Hospital stray cats were a dreadful problem. The staff had waged a successful campaign against them.

The council accepted Miss Menzies’ offer to advise the writer of the letter on the hospital system of eliminating unwanted cats.