|
Score another win for the federal government! Earlier this year, the feds (along with the state of New Jersey) encouraged Cape May to move a colony of feral cats off the beachfront because they might kill endangered birds. The cats were moved off the beach, and now the beach has a skunk problem.
Animal Control Officer John Queenan said he has gotten very few calls about skunks on the beachfront in his 23 years of working in the city but that suddenly he is being inundated with such calls. Queenan said he relocated the feral cats to the Cape May Harbor area in February, and he began receiving skunk complaints this summer. “Nature takes its own course. One species in eradicated and another comes in,” Queenan said.
There isn’t much Queenan can do, he said. The new beach-management plan designed to protect piping plovers and other endangered species takes control of predators - except cats - on the strand out of his hands. It is up to the state Division of Fish and Wildlife to deal with the skunks.
Queenan recommends using coffee cans filled with ammonia-soaked rags to deter skunks, and notes that they would not be there if not for a food source. [...] However, Queenan says that removing the skunks may invite another problem, such as the Norway rats that live in the jetties. There is food and shelter, so wildlife will fill the void once occupied by the feral cats.
If you didn’t get all that, let’s recap: Cats could eat endangered birds, so the cats were moved. This brought in skunks, who if moved will bring in rats. So the only way to stop the skunks is to put ammonia-soaked rags in coffee cans. Ahh, yes, what a wonderful time down the shore, smelling skunks mixed with ammonia and coffee beans.
As far as I know, the Atlantic City boardwalk cats are still okay.
Feral cats gone, Cape May now as a problem of a different stripe [Press of Atlantic City]
Photo by Andrew Larsen, Creative Commons License
|
