Feral Cats Facilitate New Partnership
By Sorina Szakacs, RLN Intern
The wellbeing of feral cats at the Port of Los Angeles became a common objective for two nonprofit organizations, The Port of Los Angeles Cat Alliance Team (POLACAT) and AltaSea, following an altercation between a volunteer feeding the cats and a tenant of AltaSea.
The incident that culminated with the arrest of Šime Popov, an octogenarian who has been feeding the port cats for decades, prompted a meeting between the two nonprofits and the Port Police.
The two entities, backed by the Port Police and the Port of Los Angeles, reached a verbal agreement on June 5, 2023. They are attempting to create a safe environment and provide a humane approach in dealing with the port’s working cats.
The partnership focuses on the feral cat population around the AltaSea construction sites and their safe removal from areas where their wellbeing is endangered by construction and rehabilitation projects. The two organizations are working closely on a campaign that addresses the Port of Los Angeles community in hopes to change mentalities and help lower the number of cats in the area.
According to Cassandra Heredia, one of POLACAT’s founders, there are five “Starkist Cat Colonies” that total around 150 animals.
“The cats are not here because they get fed,” Heredia said. “They are there because people either cannot afford to keep them due to housing or cost challenges, like getting them fixed, or just because they abandon them rather than taking them to the shelter.”
POLACAT started taking care of the cats in the port in 2021. Its volunteers provide fresh water and food daily for all the five colonies, at five feeding points. Many volunteers pay out of pocket for medical treatments of sick cats and provide foster shelters to kittens before they can be adopted.
According to Heredia, the partnership with AltaSea is an important step in ensuring a basic humane treatment for the cats.
“It is like David and Goliath shaking hands,” Heredia said. “AltaSea has a compressed schedule for construction and there should not be any animals in the area.”
The safety issue is also confirmed by AltaSea’s executive vice president and Chief Operating Officer Jenny Krusoe.
“Collaboration is one of the bases of AltaSea,” Krusoe said. “Our goal is to find common ground. We are a conveyer and a facilitator […] we do not want new cats in the area.”
While POLACAT focuses on relocating the AltaSea area cats further north, to keep the colonies closer to fishermen, AltaSea documents human behavior in the area, to try and discourage people from both feeding the cats in areas other than the feeding stations and from abandoning new ones.
“We are trying to get the message out to the community,” Krusoe said. “We are documenting the behavior of some people who leave so much food out that it attracts raccoons and other wildlife. The abandoned cats also create ecosystem problems by killing migrating birds.”
According to a POLACAT Rescue Proposal, the cat population grew because of economic aspects as well.
“Since the Starkist Cannery on Terminal Island has been in existence, cats have kept the rodent population under control and away from fishermen’s nets,” the proposal reads. “As time has passed, and the facility shut down, how to address the growing cat colonies has been an issue. Terminal Island has also become one of the common waterfront locations where people will abandon cats, and they are almost never spayed or neutered.”
POLACAT’s proposal is a request for resources and funding that in the long run would help the port community. POLACAT works with animal shelters in the LA City and County area to find homes for the cats that are adoptable both from medical and socializing perspectives.
“Working cats in the port keep rodents out of fishermen’s nests,” Heredia said. “The cats who are not good pet candidates can be neutered and reintroduced in the colonies as working cats.”
However, the abandonment of cats in the area remains the main issue the POLACAT and AltaSea joint effort wants to tackle, in hopes that in the future a zero-population growth in stray and feral cats in the port area can be reached.
POLACAT needs resources and funding to proceed with the rescue-plan for the five cat colonies in the port. But it also needs help from the community and the understanding that abandoning cats in the area is detrimental both for the animals and for the businesses in the port.
“We work hard on trying to strike a balance between the past and a humane and valuable path into the future,” Heredia said. “One that supports the cats and respects the businesses and people who work in the area.”