There are two business owners on West Oceanside, NY, USA who are making extraordinary claims about feral cats which are being fed and managed under a local authority approved TNR program.
The first one I’d like to mention is State of the Art Auto Body at 3670 W Oceanside Rd # 12, Oceanside, NY 11572, USA. It is owned by Lenny Samara. It is a car body repair shop. And they are good at their work. But what is not good is the claim by Lenny that feral cats living in the area have effectively destroyed up to 50 of the cars that he has worked on over the years. To me that sounds absurd and I think it is absurd.
He claims that when there is a broken window in a car or a hole in it, feral cats enter and then defecate and pee inside the car. That he says renders the car useless.
“A lot of the time, there’s no saving [the cars] after that happens.”
His complaint begs the question as to why he does not ensure that the cars are covered to prevent entry by cats (or rain or something else). That would solve the problem at a stroke. He is obviously unconcerned about the destruction of his cars by cats otherwise he’d have done more to remedy the problem than moaning about it.
The second person who has complained is Mike Levy. Mike owns National Metal Industries. The business operates out of an industrial area. He claims that feral cats get inside his business facility and set off alarms. The photo shows one of these cats on a counter.
What I found questionable about his claim is the ease at which cats enter his facility. Has it got holes in it? Is it that porous? There is something amiss with the structure of the building if feral cats can come and go at will and wander around inside his business property.
The cats appear to come from two sources. One is a managed feral cat colony at the rear of the Barry and Florence Friedberg Jewish Community parking lot which is next to State of the Art Auto Body. The colony is properly funded and managed (a generous benefactor picks up the bills) and accepted by the local authority.
The other source is from feral cats in Oceanside who are fed by Tommy Apicella. He feeds the cats in line with local authority guidelines by cleaning up the feeding stations daily. His voluntary work to help the cats is legal.
Levy claims the local authorities are allowing a problem to continue and that Tommy Apicella should not be feeding cats on his block. If he wants to feed them he should do it at his own house.
Final comment: Both these guys can do more to humanely and decently keep the feral cats out their cars and property. They can solve their own problems. Do that first and then see if there is a cause for complaint.
The article is on the LiHerald.com website. Below it are five comments. All are for the business owners and against the cats.
One commenter voices that age old complaint which keeps on coming back: toxoplasmosis. He is alluding to zoonotic diseases. Another suggests that the cats should be moved to shelters but he ignores the fact that these are feral cats. Another says that feeding feral cats should be banned while the fifth commenter suggests planting lilies in the area to poison them. He refers to the cats as vermin.
