Birders, cat people team in California “Project Bay Cat”

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

FOSTER CITY, California–Project Bay Cat on February 1
announced that it had achieved 77% sterilization of the estimated 170
feral cats living along the scenic Bay Trail during 2004, and had
socialized and adopted out 31 cats and kitters, reducing the cat
population to 130.
“Working together in a precedent-setting partnership, the
Homeless Cat Network, Sequoia Audubon Society, and Foster City
municipal government joined forces to humanely address the feral cat
population,” said Project Bay Cat representative Cimeron Morrisey.
“The Foster City shoreline is an integral part of the Pacific
Flyway,” a major migratory bird route,” Morrisey continued. The
Bay Trail also wanders through artificial marshes that are attracting
growing year-round bird populations, and the endangered California
clapper rail inhabits the area surrounding the north end of the trail.
More than 15 years of bitter politics and sometimes lawsuits
over efforts to protect clapper rails by killing feral cats and foxes
preceded the formation of Project Bay Cat, which came together ,
Morrissey said, when local animal advocates began talking to each
other instead of pushing the agendas of national organizations.
“We are collaborating in this project for the protection of
bird habitat, a better life for the cats, and a more pleasant levee
path for all users,” said Sequoia Audubon Society conservation
committee chair Robin Smith.
“The collaborators of Project Bay Cat have created a tool kit
for others who wish to take similar action,” Morrisey said, “free
from<info@homelesscatnetwork.org>, or from 650-286-9013.”