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WILKES-BARRE — What Alice Burton saw and heard about the divide over how to deal with feral cats in the city didn’t surprise her.

It’s what brought the former animal control officer in Arlington, Va., and convert to the Trap-Neuter-Return method of caring for the cats to Wilkes-Barre to present a free workshop.

Burton, who works as the associate director of animal shelter and animal control engagement of Alley Cat Allies of Bethesda, Md., along with the organization’s attorney Molly Armus, spoke to a crowd of approximately 50 people at the THINK Center downtown.

“The reason we’re here is because there’s a conflict,” Burton said.

Residents on both sides of the practice that traps the cats, has them taken to a veterinarian or clinic to be neutered or spayed and returned to where they were caught, have pleaded their cases publicly at city council meetings with no signs of compromise.

Wilkes-Barre is not unique in that respect, Burton added. “We see this a lot,” she said.

For approximately two hours, Burton and Armus, presented facts, figures and anecdotes to the supportive audience about the benefits of TNR and how to gain community support for the practice so that the animals and people can coexist.

The practice, in place in cities throughout the country, is humane and effective in reducing the feral or community cats, they said. Trapping and transporting the cats to shelters where there are euthanized doesn’t eliminate the problem because a “vacuum effect” occurs as other cats move into the territory temporarily vacated, they said.

Burton said she was skeptical about TNR when she was working as an animal control officer. But the hard numbers changed her mind.

In 2009 her department handled 913 nuisance cat complaints compared to 47 in 2015 after TNR was implemented. The cat intake decreased to 884 in 2015 from 1,276 in 2009.

“I embraced it,” Burton said, and so did community. “When we would be driving through the neighborhoods, people were waving at us, instead of waving us down.”

City council pulled an ordinance to manage the colonies of cats throughout neighborhoods from the May 20 meeting so that it could be reworked. And the city recently pulled out of six-month agreement that permitted two organizations to carry out TNR from April 1 through Oct. 31.

Four of the five city council members — Bill Barrett, Mike Belusko, Tony Brooks and Beth Gilbert attended the workshop. So did the city’s animal enforcement officer Adam Olver, who crafted the ordinance for council, and Henry Radulski, the director of the city’s Health Department.

“I’m not against it. I don’t think any council member’s against it,” Belusko said. The complaints are the biggest issue, he said.

When asked about what happens next, Belusko said, “We’re going to talk.”

Bowman Street resident Susan Hall does TNR on her own and found the workshop helpful. Hall has addressed council and plans to do so again.

“It’s not going away any time soon,” Hall said.

Alice Burton, left, and Molly Armus, right, of Bethesda, Md.-based Alley Cat Allies presented a workshop Wednesday night at the THINK Center in Wilkes-Barre on “Helping Cats in Your Community” to deal with feral or community cats in the city’s neighborhoods. Jerry Lynott | Times Leader
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Alley-Cat-allies.jpg.optimal.jpgAlice Burton, left, and Molly Armus, right, of Bethesda, Md.-based Alley Cat Allies presented a workshop Wednesday night at the THINK Center in Wilkes-Barre on “Helping Cats in Your Community” to deal with feral or community cats in the city’s neighborhoods. Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

By Jerry Lynott

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Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.