My husband and I love to travel, and one thing we’ve noticed is there is a huge need for feral cat removal all around the world.

We’re not your standard American tourists, who stick to bus tours, museums, gift shops and well-known monuments.  We love to walk off the beaten track, strolling into neighborhoods and going where the locals like to hang out.  In our opinion, it’s the best way to see the world, see how someone else lives.

And, we have seen how feral cats are a big problem wherever you live.  Some places have worse problems than others.  Maui has a large feral cat population.  They love to hang out in alleys behind restaurants, munching on free food and the rodents that come to rummage in the trash.  In Tunisia, it’s crazy.  Wild cats roam around the streets, nosing through garbage, tracking disease and fleas and ticks wherever they go.  It seems odd that no one seems to think of feral cat removal in some places.

After a long trip, we love coming home.  Our bed just seems softer, our home more cozy.  We unpack our suitcases, exhausted and ready for a long night’s rest.  Then, in the middle of the night, we’re awakened by a nerve-jarring “rawrrrr-rawrrrrr-hisss.”  Apparently, we have a feral cat problem right in our own neighborhood, and they’re out there fighting and hissing and tracking disease and all over our own subdivision.   We love our neighbors, but can they be serious, setting out food and shelter for the wild cats roaming our streets?  We love cats as much as they do, but if you don’t provide food and shelter, the wild ones will find it somewhere else!

What’s worse, they love to leave their garage door open just a little, just to give the wild cats a warm place to sleep and have their litters.  When the kittens are born, they’re just allowed to wander in and out of their garage.  The cats make a toilet out of our garden, and spray our walls to mark their territory.

We desperately wish our neighbors would at least have the courtesy to trap and neuter or spay the wild cats they feed and house.  That way, the problem would be reduced.  We are seriously considering calling a feral cat removal service ourselves, asking them to be discreet in their efforts at trapping.  We’d hate ending up in a fight with our neighbors over cats that don’t even belong to us, but we’ve seen how bad the issue can be in cities all over the world.  Please don’t let it happen here!