Miami – When stray cats at the Kendal Shopping Center occur on the mountains of Kibble near the parking lot at Lowe, they often have Virginia Dieppa. At least for now.
The 70-year-old retiree will assist Uber Eats to cover the cost of food for dozens of cats living off the coast of Southwest 137th Avenue. She uses her notepad to track names for Patches, Pearls, Socks, Midnight and Keeney. Her car’s trunk is packed with jugs, cat food, and she has donated a polotropical bowl to supply her food.
The cat consistently eats up her efforts, but not everyone is a fan. Dieppa and other volunteer feeders say they were warned by police that they had no permission to leave food in private parking lots. Dieppa said a nearby daycare has sued cat waste. Earlier this month, Miami-Dade commissioners on behalf of Raquel Regalado, that area of Kendall, submitted the law to ban feeding stray animals outside of businesses or outside the park, but they eventually revoked it after being rebounded.
“I was shocked,” Diepa said of the rebellion against cat breeding outside the Row. “These cats have been fed for 18 years.”
Dieppa’s unrest captures some of the complications surrounding the rise in stray cats that are indirectly licensed by the county government in Miami-Dade. Last year, the county’s animal services department brought nearly 18,000 stray cats back onto the streets. Each was sterilized after being caught up in a trap supplied by the county or handed over by a member of the public.
![The cat is located in a woodland near the parking lot at Kendall's Row. Last year, the county animal services department brought 18,000 stray cats back on the streets.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 620 413"/%3E "The cat is located in a woodland near the parking lot at Kendall's Row. Last year, the county animal services department brought 18,000 stray cats back on the streets.")
Miami-Dade was used to euthanize stray cats, but in 2012, policies changed amid pressures to dramatically increase shelter survival rates. Miami-Dade then launched a “TNR” program: traps, castration and returns.
The number of cats served by a program to receive vaccinations in addition to sterilizing cats has doubled over the past decade. About 8,700 cats were released in 2016, according to county figures. Last year, Miami-Dade brought about 17,800 sterile cats back onto the streets.
If the county is free to set, who feeds the cat? In a statement, Animal Services said street cats could dodge for themselves.
“The cats in the community are extremely adaptable and are naturally equipped to survive outdoors,” the statement said. “Their strong territorial instincts teaches them to navigate their surroundings, find food and water sources, and find safe shelters.”
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But the county’s informal network of cat feeders says their efforts are key to providing a humane presence to thousands of wanderings trying to survive without a home.
“One of the cats I feed is lacking in eyes. One of the cats I don’t have legs,” said Samuel Mvudi, 25, who tends to be a group of cats who live in another Kendall shopping center. “When I blow my mouth whi, they all come running.”
The question of what to do with homeless cats is debatable. People for ethical treatment of animals, the right group of animals, said that bringing sterile wild cats back into the wild is humane, fed and monitored for health issues and there is no risk of being attacked by cars. Otherwise, the organization’s website states that “allowing wild cats to continue their daily struggle for survival in hostile environments is not usually a humanitarian option.” Bird death is also a concern. The American Bird Conservancy agenda includes “keeping cats indoors,” which denies the deaths of 1 billion birds a year after becoming pregnant in a feline profession.
Friction spiked in Miami-Dade this month when Regarado introduced a law that would fine $100 for people feeding stray cats, dogs and peacocks in public or commercial facilities. The law cited “unsightly conditions” from feeding efforts that stated that the proposed ordinance “can attract pests, clog storms and contribute to the contamination of the county’s stormwater system.”
Regalado said the law is designed to “eliminate” feeding operations by giving authorities the option to issue fines, rather than imposing a fine for trespassing on feeding in places they are not permitted to.
However, the backlash was sharp enough, and Regarado killed the law a few days after it was made public. “If people want to keep the status quo, that’s the status quo,” she said. The proposed ordinance was withdrawn from the agenda of the county commission meeting on Tuesday.
In the meantime, retreat from the potential ban on feeding will not resolve the friction of cats that cat Dieppa and other volunteers feed around Kendall Law.
A corporate spokesman for the hardware store chain could not comment this week. On the wall near the wooded area where cats forage, there is a yellow sign saying “Don’t feed your cat.”
Dieppa said that volunteer feeders have been receiving conflicting information and continue to distribute food during times when parking is not busy. They worry that if volunteers can no longer set their own dishes, the temperature will be heated, meaning that cats will not have access to the water.
“In the summer, we actually put water out twice a day to get it out,” Alicia Carnevale said. “If we hadn’t done this, they would probably die.”
