(Beth Clifton collage)
Losing patience with cat-feeders, the National Park Service wants 200 cats gone
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico; WARREN, Vermont; NEW YORK CITY––El Morro, formally the Castillo de San Felipe, guarding the entrance to San Juan harbor, Puerto Rico since 1589, has survived at least seven sieges, from a 1595 British attack by Francis Drake to the final surrender during the 1898 Spanish-American War that made Puerto Rico a U.S. possession.
None of those many battles, however, appears to have been fiercely contested for longer than the Battle of the Cats, recently re-escalated by the latest of a multi-year series of legal actions by Alley Cat Allies against the U.S. National Park Service, managing El Morro as a museum since 1961.
(National Park Service photo)
Dispute even appears in Wikipedia history of El Morro
Explains Wikipedia, “The fort is home to a resident colony of around 200 stray cats that are believed to have been descended from cats introduced either during colonial times or in the mid-20th century as part of rat eradication programs.
“Following concerns over an increase in their population, in 2023 the National Park Service announced it would contract an animal welfare organization to remove the cats and threatened to hire a pest control agency if it were to fail.
“However, the plan was suspended following a lawsuit by animal welfare groups in 2024.”
Map of El Morro. (Beth Clifton collage based on National Park Service image.)
National Park Service policy
National Park Service policy is to discourage any presence of non-native species on park properties. Cats, though present at El Morro for at least 400 years, are officially non-native, but despite the mandate that might have been invoked to exterminate or at least expel them, were easily ignored by generations of National Park Service managers as cheap rat control.
This changed, gradually, beginning more than 25 years ago, after cat feeders, some purporting to practice neuter/return cat population control, habitually left food on site, especially along El Paseo, the central road through El Morro, that distracted the cats from nocturnal rat-hunting and instead became a visible attractant to the rats the cats were expected to kill.
Neuter/return, practiced without feeding, might have eventually reduced the cat population to diurnal invisibility. Instead, as often occurs in public places, feeding made the cats, with cat urine and defecation, a conspicuous nuisance.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Free Ranging Cat Management Plan
Eventually, at least partially under pressure from birders, the National Park Service in 2022-2023 developed a Free Ranging Cat Management Plan that called for ousting the cats, alive or dead.
“The selected alternative,” the National Park Service announced, “will include continued trapping and removal efforts by an animal welfare organization, removal of all feeding stations in the park, monitoring, and additional removal efforts if deemed necessary.
“To reduce the potential for pet abandonment in the park,” the National Park Service continued, “the San Juan National Historic Site will continue to close the entrance to the Paseo at night and have security guards present when the Paseo is open (under an agreement with the Puerto Rico Tourism Company).
(Beth Clifton collage)
New lighting system
“To provide additional security,” the National Park Service added, “the park is currently installing a new lighting system along the Paseo. The park will continue existing educational efforts through messaging that informs visitors of the issues associated with abandoning cats, including abandonment in national park units.
“Additionally, it will increase educational efforts through additional messaging, addressing the reasons cats cannot be abandoned in the park, and noting that the park does not provide food for abandoned cats.”
The National Park Service plan did not allow for any continued neuter/return work, both in keeping with the national mandate to discourage non-native species and because neuter/return had become extensively misused as a pretext by feeders for keeping outdoor pets.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Alley Cat Allies sued
Alley Cat Allies sued. Implementation of the National Park Service plan was suspended in September 2024 pending resolution of the lawsuit.
That has not happened yet. Meanwhile, on April 8, 2025, Alley Cat Allies introduced an argument that the “National Park Service’s certification of its administrative record as complete regarding its plan to remove and kill cats in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was false” because “the organization uncovered that the National Park Service excluded hundreds of public comments from the record.”
As the case meanders on, “cats of all colors and sizes continue to prowl the trails bordering deep turquoise waters that surround El Morro, and they even have a statue honoring them nearby,” reports Dañica Coto of Associated Press, while “A local nonprofit, Save a Gato, feeds, spays and neuters the cats, and places them into adoption.”
Stacy LeBaron.
John Boone & Stacy LeBaron
Concurrently with all that, United Spay Alliance recently published Free-Roaming Cat Management: A Funder’s Guide to Better Impact, commissioned by the Summerlee Foundation, co-authored by John Boone, Ph.D., and Stacy LeBaron.
Boone lists as credentials his affiliations with the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs, Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society of the U.S.), and the Great Basin Bird Observatory.
LeBaron, best known as director of the Community Cats Podcast, is also a cofounder of the United Spay Alliance, and in 1992 cofounded the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society, operating one of the oldest and most successful feral cat neuter/return projects in the world.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Volunteer-based activity”
Pointed out Boone and LeBaron in introducing Free-Roaming Cat Management, “Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs have been promoted and pursued for decades by animal welfare organizations as the method of choice for humane management of free-roaming cats, sometimes (but not always) with the explicit goal of reducing their numbers over time.
“However, TNR implementation has not mirrored other animal welfare priorities in terms of funding, scale, intensity, or consistency. Instead, it is often a volunteer-based activity that is conducted without the full benefits of institutional support or synergies with other programmatic initiatives.
“Without question,” Boone and LeBaron agree, citing a thick stack of peer-reviewed studies, “TNR as currently practiced reduces the number of births in free-roaming cat populations, eliminates the suffering and premature death associated with those births, and improves the health and lifespan of sterilized cats.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Intensity & duration”
“In localized areas, TNR has also been shown to reduce free-roaming cat numbers if conducted with sufficient intensity and duration. TNR also provides sheltering organizations with an alternative to intake and thereby reduces shelter euthanasia rates and shelter crowding.
“In all these senses,” Boone and LeBaron assess, “TNR can viably be said to ‘work.’ However, the extent to which TNR performed to date has changed the fundamental characteristics of the free-roaming cat system at scale or mitigated the root causes of FRC persistence is far less certain. Indeed, most local free-roaming cat populations––including many that are the subject of at least some TNR intervention––seem to maintain themselves at or near their current densities, with TNR functioning more as a form of palliative care than as a change agent.”
This is more-or-less a short summary of the situation at El Morro in San Juan, as well as at hundreds and perhaps thousands of other locations where neuter/return has not reduced conflicts resulting from the presence of cats, or at least too many cats, where for whatever reason cats are not wanted.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Four critical elements”
Recommend Boone and LeBaron in Free-Roaming Cat Management, “In order to produce significant population declines over time as efficiently as possible, free-roaming cat management should incorporate four critical elements: integration, targeting, duration, and basic cat counting.
“Integration involves combining several ‘layers’ of effort that support and reinforce one another,” Boone and LeBaron explain.
“An example,” Boone and LeBaron offer, “might be combining neuter/return with removal for adoption, spay/neuter subsidies for owned indoor/outdoor cats, and a coordinated feeding program. Integration is our best tool for overcoming the multiple pathways by which cats can be added to a free-roaming cat population.
(Beth Clifton photo)
“Targeting”
“Targeting,” Boone and LeBaron continue, “involves concentrating effort in a series of phased steps. The most common example is performing intensive TNR in a well-defined subset of the overall project area to rapidly reach high sterilization percentages before moving on to a neighboring area, but the targeting concept can apply to other elements of integrated management as well. Targeting is our best tool for reducing the risk of the ‘backsliding’ that can occur when a TNR effort has to work against the counterforce of reproduction by the remaining intact cats, immigration, and abandonment.
“Project duration is critical,” Boone and LeBaron state, meaning that TNR effort must be sustained, “because free-roaming cat populations respond to sterilization-based management slowly, even when it is well-targeted. If the management effort stops prematurely, any progress made can quickly come undone.
“Finally, “ Boone and LeBaron mention, “simple, periodic cat counting tells us in ‘near real time’ what is working and what is not, while it is still possible to course-correct. The best example is using basic cat counts to estimate sterilization percentage, which provides critical and immediately actionable information about the sufficiency of effort.”
(Beth Clifton collage/ Hiro Yamasaki photo)
Feeding
Of note: ANIMALS 24-7 in 1992 included, and indeed emphasized, all but one of the Boone/LeBaron recommendations in each of the first three articles describing neuter/return technique published in nationally distributed media in the United States.
ANIMALS 24-7 did not recommend introducing “a coordinated feeding program” because if cats are present somewhere, they will, like any other resident wildlife, already have adequate food sources; adding more will only tend to attract more cats, and change cat behavior from hunting mainly rodents at night to waiting for feedings by day, hunting birds for sport.
ANIMALS 24-7 did, however, encourage TNR practitioners to identify cat-feeders already active in locations with problematic free-roaming cats, to enlist their help in trapping and counting cats.
Sally the cat in the late AnnaBell Washburn’s New York City apartment overlooking United Nations Plaza. (See Cat rescuer & advocate AnnaBell Washburn, 90, had global influence.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
New York City Council
Also concurrent with the Battle of the Cats at El Morro, Coalition for NYC Animals founder Elizabeth Forel on April 15, 2025 emailed to members that the New York City Council budget recommendations for the next fiscal year include $1.5 million “for a citywide initiative to provide resources, support, and assistance for TNR in partnership with non-profit community-based animal rescue organizations,” to “provide spay and neuter surgeries for over 8,000 animals annually.”
Objected Forel, “This proposal only refers to cats who are trapped by TNR rescuers. It does not include any dogs, and it does not include the many residents of New York City who cannot afford the high costs of spay/neuter.
“It is not just those who do TNR who need funding for spay/neuter,” Forel wrote. “Cats who are not part of TNR rescue and dogs get pregnant and have litters also!”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“70-75% of the animals coming into Animal Care & Control are intact”
Charged Forel, “70-75% of the animals coming into Animal Care & Control are intact. Many have come from homes. It is not unusual for someone to surrender two intact cats––male and female––and provide information about their previous litters––cats they gave away who were also not fixed. Sometimes, it is many cats––all related and all intact who get dumped; or the stray but friendly dog on the street who is pregnant.
“Why is this? One reason ,” Forel suggested, “is that the cost of spaying or neutering a cat or dog in New York City is much too costly for many people. $1,000 for a cat spay in Manhattan is common, while dogs cost more. The few clinics––like Flatbush or the Humane Society of New York––have long waiting lists.”
Ed Boks & friend. (Beth Clifton collage)
“Prioritizing visibility over viability”
Observed Animal Politics blogger Ed Boks a day earlier, speaking from his experience heading the animal control departments serving Los Angeles, New York City, and Maricopa County, Arizona, “While pet overpopulation continues to plague communities across the country, some of the nation’s largest animal welfare organizations are doubling down on a strategy that may be exacerbating the problem: transporting homeless animals from high-intake shelters to communities with greater demand for adoptable pets.
“At first glance, these transport programs appear compassionate and pragmatic. They save lives and make for great public relations. But a closer look reveals a troubling paradox: these high-profile efforts often sideline more effective, less glamorous solutions like high-volume spay/neuter, targeted sterilization, and community-based pet retention. By prioritizing visibility over viability, the movement risks deepening the crisis it aims to solve.”
Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.
Actually it already did.
For example, if as much money had been spent on targeted spay/neuter of the estimated 200 feral cats at El Morro, beginning 25 years ago, as has been spent on flying cats and dogs from Puerto Rico to New York City for adoption, the Battle of the Cats there would never have started.
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