Cape May Postpones Decision on the Fate of Feral Cats

On Tuesday night, February 19, the Cape May city council meeting played to standing room only as more than 100 dismayed residents packed the quaint auditorium over a proposed vote on a beach management plan. The proposed plan would virtually eliminate the city’s groundbreaking and highly successful twelve-year old Trap-Neuter-Return initiative from many of the community’s beachfront neighborhoods. Mayor Jerome “Jerry” Inderwies tried to explain to the distraught residents, many of whom are active caregivers, that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection are essentially holding this year’s beach-sand replenishment hostage pending the council’s approval of their flawed, ineffective beach-management plan.

As the mayor noted, maintaining the historic seaside resort’s wide sandy beaches is essential to the economic wellbeing of the community, and he reiterated that the wildlife protection agencies have given the city an ultimatum to accept their version of the beach management plan or lose the vital beach-sand replenishment. Cape May residents were flabbergasted to find out that the city intended on voting on a final beach-management plan without making it available to the public or giving them the necessary opportunity to review it. And according to city councilman David Kurkowski, the US Fish and Wildlife Service admits that plan is “insufficient” to protect the plan’s primary focus—nesting piping plovers.

Alley Cat Allies President Becky Robinson opened the public comment period by questioning what would happen after the city eliminated the proven and effective Trap-Neuter-Return program—likely a return to the failed and inhumane catch-and-kill. Mayor Inderweis responded by saying that Cape May is proud of what has been a successful and effective feral cat spay/neuter program and does not want to see it eliminated. Brenda Malinics, a city homeowner as well as a volunteer piping plover protector and experienced wildlife rehabilitator, told the city council that the beach-management plan unilaterally targets cats, while ignoring the primary threats to the piping plover nests: human disturbance; dogs; deer; and other, far more dangerous predators such as water rats, foxes, raccoons, opossums, crows, sea gulls and skunks.

Other city residents questioned whether there was any evidence that cats were even a threat to piping plovers—the mayor, and the former public works director, added that while he has seen numerous wildlife tracks on the beach, he has never seen cat tracks and did not know of any documented case of cats “taking” piping plovers or disturbing their nests. One new resident, who had moved to Cape May from Fire Island, New York, told the council that the community there had a similar experience with mandated Fish and Wildlife Service “protection” plans. Where Trap-Neuter-Return was permitted, there was widespread support and protective efforts proved effective. Where it was banned and cats were removed, other predators such as water rats moved in and seriously threatened the plover nests.

For most who attended the meeting it was difficult to understand why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NJ Department of Environmental Protection would jeopardize the economic well-being of this vibrant seaside resort simply to promote a flawed beach-management plan that scapegoats cats, ignores the primary threats to the nesting plovers, and in the end would do very little to actually protect those birds.

The city tabled a decision on the beach management plan that night, claiming they would try to find a solution that would protect the endangered shorebirds while taking into account the community’s successful Trap-Neuter-Return program. But on March 4, they plan to vote on the beach management plan, and no other plan or solution is being considered.

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